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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Makes Me Want To Raid A Village......And My Wife!!, January 24, 2008
Blood On Ice is a viking themed album that Quorthon began in 89 and shelved until fan interest built up and he finally went back, tweaked it, and released it. It's a great thing he did coz few albums conjure images of the snowy Nordic wasteland like this. You almost feel cold listening to it! Usually heavy metal bands that use wintery fantasy/barbarian imagery tend to fall into either the Black metal or Power metal categories. Bathory is neither, yet will most likely appeal to fans of both. For those unfamiliar with Bathory's "viking" era, it tends to be of a heavy mid-paced sound. Even the "fast" songs here are still more or less mid-paced. Now don't go mistaking mid-paced for boring, coz this album is anything but. This isn't extremely complex and technical music, so if you've been spoiled by countless Prog/Power metal bands, you might be thrown for a loop. It's very epic with alot of "aaaaaaaaaaaaah", "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh" type choir background vocals(I hope you can see where I'm coming from with that rather generic description). Lots of sound effects of galloping horses, running water, birds, even the sound of boots crunching through snow. The production is very raw and rough sounding as it is on every Bathory album(it's pretty much his trademark sound). Normally this could be a major complaint of an album, but in Bathory's case, it works the exact opposite and enhances the album immensely. I guess my only complaint about the raw production is that Quorthon's vocals tend to get a bit muffled and buried in the mix. Though he's using clean vocals, you need the lyric booklet to understand all he's saying. Speaking of the lyrics, Blood On Ice is a concept album. It's kind of a cliched story of a man seeking revenge for the slaughter of his village, but Quorthon adds some cool touches. One example is when the hero prepares for his battle with a creature that can't be looked upon, he has to remove his eyes and throw them in a magic lake that will grant him some kind of mystical second sight. Normally these kinds of lyrics and themes come off as extremely corny in the hands of many Power and Black metal bands, but Quorthon has a way with words. Not to mention that the songs are so damn catchy and memorable. In the cd booklet, Quorthon writes about the conditions under which this album was recorded and they're anything but epic and majestic. It's amazing he got this sound under such conditions coz you'd swear he recorded this album on top of some mountain during a blizzard. It makes for great listening, especially for this time of year(this time of year being January. It's about 8 billion below zero here as of this writing....perfect!). Very, very, very highly recommended for those who love metal, fantasy/barbarian/viking stuff, or if you're like me, a lunatic Beastmaster fan. If you like this, Bathory's Hammerheart, Nordland, Nordland II and Twilight of the Gods are also in the same vein and also excellent. It's a sad thing that Quorthon died so young, but at least he left us with some memorable and original music.
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by Bathory 
