Every so often, there will be a group that just comes along and sets a new industry standard in what inevitably becomes a sheltered genre of music. "Amon Amarth" rose from the depths in 1997 and emphatically crushed the competition with their Metal Blade debut, "Once Sent From The Golden Hall." This, an album of epic proportions, bled of Viking mythology forcefully executed with razor-sharp dual guitar precision in the finest melodic tradition and pulverized any and all drifters who still managed to cling onto their past significance.

With "The Avenger," the Swedish Death outfit again surfaces from The Abyss, as in Studios, run by the renowned Peter Tagtgren, whom undoubtedly incurred major reparations in the aftermath, and "Amon Amarth" forges onward, exhibiting the same brutality and force as the namesake drawn for the title. Here the mighty North winds send seven tales of power and glory, cradled amongst pagan ideology, wrath and death, and the ultimate raising of the sword in victory!