Amon Amarth

Amon Amarth are Swedish melodic death metal lifers from Tumba, formed in 1992 and named after the Sindarin name for Mount Doom from Tolkien's Middle-earth. Their songs are full of Viking myth and history, which gets them tagged as "Viking metal", but the band prefers the plainer label, and the music backs them up: galloping twin-guitar melodies over a pummeling rhythm section, with Johan Hegg roaring the sagas in a bottom-of-the-fjord growl.

The core has barely budged. Hegg has sung from the start, alongside guitarist Olavi Mikkonen and bassist Ted Lundström, with Johan Söderberg arriving on guitar in 1998 and Fredrik Andersson holding down the drums from 1998 to 2015 before Jocke Wallgren took over. Their debut album, Once Sent from the Golden Hall, came in 1998.

The breakthrough was Twilight of the Thunder God in 2008, which went top ten in Sweden. Its title track is the one to hear: a thundering battle hymn with a melody you could hum on the march. Surtur Rising, Deceiver of the Gods, Jomsviking, Berserker and The Great Heathen Army followed, one longship after another.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.