Black Mark Records
1990
Hammerheart
About This Album
Regularly cited as the archetypical Viking metal album, Bathory's Hammerheart remains an unqualified triumph for the pioneering Swedish act. Merging audacious lyrical ambitions with a sense of musical grandeur akin to the greatest epic works in metal history -- among which it is frequently numbered -- Hammerheart is a fully fleshed concept album, and a literate one at that. Chronicling with great detail and drama the Christian invasion of Scandinavia during medieval times, and his pagan ancestors' forceful conversion to the cross, Seth Quorthon became a standard-bearer for an entire generation of disenfranchised Norse-descended teens. In fact, Hammerheart's remarkably well-thought-out words and overall scope and vision engendered a deep-seated anti-Christian sentiment within the region's extreme metal scene, sentiments that were eventually brought to their most violent conclusion with the hate crimes perpetrated by members of the Norwegian black metal community in the early '90s. Turning to the music itself, the clean vocals which had made their first appearance on Bathory's previous outing, Blood Fire Death, become the norm throughout Hammerheart, further clarifying the resentful exposé of Quorthon's lyrics.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4 and 7)

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