With Gods and Legends Unite

There is no getting around the Amon Amarth comparison with Wulfgar’s With Gods and Legends Unite. The riffs, melodies and Viking-metal stomp make its early-era influences obvious. But I don’t mind that. Amon Amarth moved on from that particular sound, and sometimes another band playing in the same vein is exactly what I want. More importantly, Wulfgar’s debut has enough odd little details to sound like Wulfgar, not just an anonymous copy.

Those details are not necessarily the things a producer would want to tidy up. The guitars have a peculiar, instantly recognizable tone. I am not even sure I would call it a good tone, but I would notice if it disappeared. Underneath them, the bass has a wonderfully clanky, metallic attack that I somehow hadn’t paid much attention to before this listen. Then there is the vocalist, whose unmistakable timbre and movement between low growls and mid-to-high screams give the music another identity of its own. The roughness makes the recording feel honest and genuine to me. It even has a cozy, almost home-like atmosphere, although I suspect nostalgia has something to do with that.

The music itself is thoroughly meat-and-potatoes melodeath. Wulfgar mostly operate at a mid-tempo stomp, occasionally slowing down and only rarely picking up serious speed. I didn’t notice any blast beats on the debut. The rhythms can feel martial, but the overall effect is remarkably melodic rather than aggressive or abrasive. It is an easy album to put on while doing something else: enjoyable without demanding your full attention.

A lot of the guitar writing follows the classic formula of tremolo-picked melodies over power chords. That formula works, particularly when the hooks land, but it also means the songs start sounding awfully similar. I would have welcomed more proper solos or guitar interplay to give the arrangements some variety. The band tries its hand at solos in a couple of places; I just wish those moments did more to break up the familiar patterns.

Two songs rise above the pack for me. “Cleansed by Fire” is the kind of earworm that brings me back to this record, while “This Pagan Blood” has a particularly catchy chorus and sits toward the faster end of Wulfgar’s range. On the other hand, “He Stands Alone” is the low point: almost six minutes of slower stomping, complete with roughly 40 seconds of fade-out. It is where the deliberate pace stops working in the band’s favor.

At around 55 minutes and 12 tracks, including an obligatory intro that doesn’t add much, the album could easily have been condensed. Give me seven or eight of these songs across roughly 40 minutes and I wouldn’t complain. By the end, they blur together, and the closing track could have sat somewhere in the middle without changing a thing. The album simply ends.

I briefly considered a 7, but that felt harsher than my actual experience. I do enjoy this sound, these riffs and the unmistakable character of this recording. It doesn’t quite reach an 8 because it drags toward the finish, yet when I want nearly an hour of straightforward old-school Viking-themed melodeath, Wulfgar deliver a good time.

Reviewed version: Spotify streaming; specific master and playback quality not established.