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Amon Amarth

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Sweden's Viking metal institution — melodic death metal with longship stage sets and choruses a whole field roars back.

Amon Amarth formed in 1992 in Tumba, south of Stockholm, growing out of an earlier grindcore and death metal band called Scum, founded in 1988. The name comes from the Sindarin term for Mount Doom in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. The line-up has been unusually stable, built around vocalist Johan Hegg, guitarists Olavi Mikkonen and Johan Söderberg, bassist Ted Lundström and drummer Jocke Wallgren.

Early demos, Thor Arise in 1993 and The Arrival of the Fimbul Winter in 1994, caught attention despite rough production. The band signed to Pulverised Records in 1996 and released the EP Sorrow Throughout the Nine Worlds, which sold 6,000 copies, before moving to Metal Blade Records for their debut album, Once Sent from the Golden Hall, in 1998.

Musically the band works in melodic death metal: mid-paced galloping riffs, harmonised twin-guitar lines and Hegg's low growl, with the emphasis on memorable, repeatable hooks rather than speed or technical density. Almost all of the lyrics draw on Norse mythology and Viking-age history, a theme kept since that debut.

The band's breakthrough came with 2008's Twilight of the Thunder God, which reached No. 10 on the Swedish album chart and No. 50 on the US Billboard 200. Further albums, including Surtur Rising, Deceiver of the Gods, Jomsviking, Berserker and The Great Heathen Army, brought the total to twelve studio releases and widened their audience considerably, and their live show is known for its theatrical staging.

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