Demonaz’ solo album is more Black Metal, or more Immortal,
if you will, than Abbath’s of the same general time, but it is also more of a
by-the-numbers affair. That shouldn’t be misread as a knock, only as a primer
statement.
Nine tracks, two of which are an intro and an outro, of what
is probably most closely tied to later, Viking Metal Bathory, March of the Norse is an album that is
extra upfront with what it’s giving you. Vikings! Battles! Cold! Viking battles
in the cold! The seven actual tracks are
good, straight forward Black-ish metal tunes, veering towards very late era
Bathory, circa Nordland I and II. Those are good records too, and March of the Norse is an all-around
heavier and faster affair, but they seem to be the closest comparison I have
available. There’s not much that ties this album to Immortal, though, as the
songwriting could be mistaken for any number of bands in this vein, even though
that comes across far more condescending than it was intended.
The songs do run together quite a lot, and it is sort of
difficult to talk about this album without referencing other, likely better
ones, and while not everything can be a winner, it does feel less than great to
equate an album from someone attached to such an excellent Metal pedigree to
other things that are continuously referred to as superior. There’s not a lot
of variety among the seven real songs, none of them are bad but also not very
memorable.
It’s honestly kind of hard to say anything about this album
more than “it’s fine,” but that’s what it is: a totally fine Black Metal album
about Norsemen and battle, and there are a literal thousand of those to be had.
So if you weren’t a fan of this one, you could take your pick of replacements.
I find March of the Norse to be
pretty good, but just not anything that would keep me coming back over and over
for a listen. Unlike I’s Between Two
Worlds, this is trying to be a real Black Metal record instead of a record
made by Black Metal guys, but maybe it takes itself too seriously in the
process. March of the Norse lacks the
fun of Between Two Worlds, something
that for this listener at very least will always mean it gets passed over in
favor of its Abbath-based other.
It does truly harken back to the earlier days of Immortal
however, with the legacy of records like Battles
in the North and Blizzard Beasts being
readily visible in March of the Norse,
perhaps owing to the heavy influence and impact of Demonaz during that period
of Immortal. The album lacks the overall atmosphere of an Immortal album, even
an early one, attempting to replicate it with the intro and outro pieces, but
those are truly little more than throwaway seconds on the overall runtime.
Generally speaking, March of the Norse is
more like an album written by an Immortal imposter, or a band that so loved
early Immortal that they tried to write an early period Immortal album in a
more advanced time, augmented by the last few Bathory records. It’s a real
shame the album isn’t better than what it is, because it has an absolute recipe
for success, but doesn’t ever get close to capitalizing.
Of all the entries in the Immortal/Immortal-adjacent
catalog, March of the Norse is the
least necessary. Upon its release there was some hype surrounding it in the
publications of the time, largely because it was a solo effort from the mind
behind Immortal, who had at the time been on something of a hotstreak with
releases, spanning the At the Heart of
Winter to Sons of Northern Darkness
era. But it does not capitalize on its hype, and pretty quickly faded from
view. Not everything needs to be groundbreaking, and March of the Norse was probably never going to be, but it is very
competent. There are just better listens to be had.
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