10 essential Viking metal albums

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By Chris Chantler ( Metal Hammer ) last updated 9 July 2021

Raise your flagons of mead to Valhalla! These are the 10 greatest Viking metal albums known to man and valkyrie

Heavy metal has long drawn parallels between the rampaging Norse conquerors of the Middle Ages and life as a touring band. Since Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song in 1970, Vikings have held special fascination for our favourite musicians, with Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Manowar, Sabaton, The Darkness and countless more paying tribute to their roving spirit.

Viking Metal isn’t a sound, it spans all the best heavy styles: death, black, trad, doom, power, prog, folk, even the Norse glam of TNT. Wherever the thematic obsession with hairy heathens storming coastlines is writ largest, there shall ye find Viking Metal. Here are ten crucial exemplars, each worthy of a place on Valhalla’s Golden Jukebox.

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Heavy Load – Stronger Than Evil (1983)

Bathory – Hammerheart (1990)

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Enslaved – Eld (1997)

Borknagar – The Olden Domain (1997)

Vintersorg – Till Fjälls (1998)

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Doomsword – Let Battle Commence (2003)

Einherjer – Blot (2003)

Tyr – Eric The Red (2003)

Unleashed – Midvinterblot (2006)

Amon Amarth – Twilight Of The Thunder God (2008)

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Chris Chantler

Chris has been writing about heavy metal since 2000, specialising in true/cult/epic/power/trad/NWOBHM and doom metal at now-defunct extreme music magazine Terrorizer. Since joining the Metal Hammer famileh in 2010 he developed a parallel career in kids' TV, winning a Writer's Guild of Great Britain Award for BBC1 series Little Howard's Big Question as well as writing episodes of Danger Mouse, Horrible Histories, Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed and The Furchester Hotel. His hobbies include drumming (slowly), exploring ancient woodland and watching ancient sitcoms.

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