Amon Amarth has been toiling in the Swedish metal scene for years now, but seems incapable of breaking into the big time the way The Haunted or In Flames have. To be fair, there probably isn’t much of a market for Viking-themed death metal, but Amon Amarth keeps releasing albums anyway. Versus the World is their fourth album, and if you liked their previous work, you’ll probably like this. If you’re not familiar with them, this is possibly their most accessible work to date, which makes it a great introduction to the band.

The opening track “Die in Fire” pretty much tells you all you need to know about the album: the is mid-paced slightly-melodic death metal with a lot of Viking imagery thrown into the mix. The speed picks up a bit in the second track “For the Stabwounds in our Backs”, but other than that it’s slow and steady all the way. I think I would have a little more fast-paced material on the album, but the songs are well crafted and pretty memorable as far as this genre is concerned. It’s always nice to hear a metal band that concentrates on writing actual songs instead of seeing how many riffs they can cram into a five-minute song.

Amon Amarth may not be breaking any new ground, but they’re very good at what they do, and they’re much more fun to listen to than the former standard-bearers of Viking-influenced death metal, Unleashed. If you’re looking for some good, quality death metal to listen to, then Amon Amarth’s Versus the World is definitely worth picking up. As an added bonus, the CD comes packaged with a bonus disc containing the band’s Sorrow Throughout the Nine Worlds EP and their demos, so you’re definitely getting your money’s worth.