Bathory
Twilight of the Gods


4.0
excellent

Review

by SickSickSix USER (5 Reviews)
April 9th, 2010 | 107 replies


Release Date: 1991 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Epic sounding album, excellent songwriting, nice atmosphere - but somewhat repetitive.

This album is epic, no arguing. It has got atmosphere and personality, some great musicianship and some excellent tracks. i have a weakness for these kind of albums that sounds BIG and majestic, so it would be easy for me to give this one top score... but what comes in the way of the album is the similarity between some songs.

After "Hammerheart" it was clear that Bathory couldn't return to the Black Metal scene they almost single handedly created in the 80's. What we got instead was a step further into the new bombastic arranged songs, now written and performed entirely by Quorthon. The arrangement of the songs now showed no signs whatsoever of the before primitive arrangements in the earlier releases. What we got instead was Quorthon's most complex, deep and thought through album of his entire career. All of the songs show sings of influence from classical music, which Quorthon took interest in as drummer Paul Lundberg joined before the recording of "Under The Sign Of The Black Mark" who was educating himself into being a full-time timpanist.
Under the classical music type of arrangement there is very few signs of Heavy Metal at all. Sure, there is distorted guitars and a somewhat distorted vocal performance, but the Heavy Metal elements are as good as unapparent.

The album starts of with a lowly distorted electric guitar that follows a moody pattern. As the slow paced title track begins, you've basically heard the entire album and if you like this kind of music, you'll love it, but if you don't, you'll probably hate it. Especially the intros of "Through Blood By Thunder" and "Blood And Iron" sounds alike, which is basically the same acoustic intro. It might have something to do with the fact that the title track and those two track was combined on the original release (making the track half an hour long!) but that is obviously the progression that Quorthon wanted the album to have (similar to the similar sounding elements in the songs on W.A.S.P's "The Crimson Idol") and then who am I to question?

Classification has always been an issue with Bathory's music. "Twilight Of The Gods" is no exception as the music tends to steer towards some kind of Bathory-style Doom Metal with classical influences more than anything, that's the only classification I would agree with because Bathory never followed any trends. Or... wait...


user ratings (574)
3.8
excellent


Comments:Add a Comment 
Urinetrouble
April 9th 2010


5771 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

one review a day

SickSickSix
April 9th 2010


23 Comments


If that's an actual rule on the website I guess I have to respect it. I just didn't know it.

Urinetrouble
April 9th 2010


5771 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

thas what everyone thinks here; its frowned upon by the sputnik communtiy. also one list per day

FadeToBlack
April 9th 2010


11043 Comments


this really isn't as unique as you're making it out to be. it doesn't sound that much different than Hammerheart

NeutralThunder12
April 9th 2010


8742 Comments


solid (at best) review, a couple weird points, and one review per day bro. But not half bad, but you gotta work at it and drain the fanboysim out of your reviews.

NeutralThunder12
April 9th 2010


8742 Comments


and I haven't even listened to this and I can tell you that it is prolly not the most epic album of all time.

FadeToBlack
April 9th 2010


11043 Comments


it is a very epic album, like all Bathory's viking era albums

sicksicksix the review reads much more like a 5 or very high 4.5; you need to justify why you 'only' gave it a 4

NeutralThunder12
April 9th 2010


8742 Comments


lol ok Fade... black metal aint my thing at all though, except for Agalloch, but their like folk-black-doom-death-post metal. I listened to Bathory and another black metal band (Venom maybe?) and Bathroy didn't really appeal to me then.

SickSickSix
April 9th 2010


23 Comments


Haha, since I'm new to this website I think I would be understood. To my opinion it actually is different to Hammerheart, partly because of the weird elements the album has got, the reason I gave it a 4 is because of the similarity between the songs, I actually made that clear and I quit simply believe that this is one of the most, if not the most epic albums of all time. But I am just one person, I can't speak for everybody but I have got the right to express myself and that's simply what I do. But just aswell critics can be criticized, I agree.

FadeToBlack
April 9th 2010


11043 Comments


what did you listen to by Bathory? cause this album and Hammerheart aren't black metal, just good old viking metal. you still probably won't like it though lol

vanderb0b
April 10th 2010


3473 Comments


I never heard Bathory before, is this a good place to start?

bloozclooz
April 10th 2010


1770 Comments


go to their last.fm page and check out their most popular albums

Phantom
April 10th 2010


9010 Comments


I never heard Bathory before, is this a good place to start?

get Blood Fire Death

vanderb0b
April 12th 2010


3473 Comments


I got Blood Fire Death. It's pretty epic, but the production is terrible.

FadeToBlack
April 12th 2010


11043 Comments


boohoo its black metal, what do you expect??

GoldenGod
April 12th 2010


46 Comments


Black Metal entails ALL Norwegian bands of the scene which exploded in the 90's (burzum bathory emperor etc)...THEN you may check out bands like Samael/Moonspell/Rotting Christ/cradle of filth for a more progressive approach to structure and production

SickSickSix
May 28th 2010


23 Comments


Edited, may 28:th 2010.

Oathbreaker
April 25th 2011


1648 Comments


>Moonspell/Rotting Christ/cradle of filth
>Progressive
PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHh

Crysis
Emeritus
April 25th 2011


17640 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

This is probably his most overlooked release, but it slays.

AngelofDeath
Emeritus
April 25th 2011


16306 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

They're almost all overlooked on this site lol.



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