Oh, what a hilarious booklet! It looks exactly like a children's comic!!! Here are naked houris caressing a filthy bearded Viking, and there is a one-eyed Saruman trying to sink a shield-laden drakkar with electricity... And on the cover — look, everyone!!! Terminator 2!!! Arnie himself, an exact copy, only for some reason in absurd armor and with a primitive blade in his steel hand... So, donning an antique horned helmet and wrapping my proud torso in triple-weave chainmail (one must soak in the cold Nordic spirit, after all!), I hit "play" on the stereo, and leaping out at me is... guess who??... Stratovarius!!! Well, or something Rhapsody-esque — the synthesizer races neck and neck with the guitars, while a boyish timbre spins out an almost Burzum-worthy tale. Specifically, it justifies the historic massacre at Lindisfarne in 793 AD, when a mob of drunken berserkers drowned an entire Christian monastery in blood. SEYMINHOL perhaps lay claim to the title of the first true power-Viking band. Although, if we recall their Norwegian brethren EINHERJER and their "Dragons Of The North," everything falls into place — the same straightforward melodicism, uncomplicated riffs, clean vocals with rare excursions into blackened screaming (albeit the venerable Einherjer do it the other way around, but the point stands), recitatives, and fjords, fjords, fjords... The further it goes, the more the album slows down, growing ever doomier, creating a sense of being somewhat drawn out. If only they had thrown in a couple of armor-piercing anthems, something like Bathory's "One Rode To Asa Bay" — to complete the concept, so to speak. But for now — merely "good"...
