MÅNEGARM

Fornaldarsagor

NAPALM

Pagan folk stalwarts fail to light up the sky

It’s always been a little hard to know what to make of Månegarm. Positioned somewhere between upbeat folksiness and scabrous extremity, the Swedes’ sound is full of well-worn and familiar tropes, all delivered with the requisite aggression and pomp, of course, but rarely telling us anything we don’t already know. Fornaldarsagor has a few genuinely brilliant moments; Ett Sista Farväl is wonderfully emotive and evocative with blissful, intertwined melodies and fierce dynamics; Spjutbädden is a rampaging, mid-tempo sprawl with powerfully icy undertones; Dödskvädet is a strippeddown, pleasingly melancholic thing with shades of Hugsjá. The problems come when Manegarm over-estimate the world’s enthusiasm for