But a lot of their songs can piece together. There are a lot of pieces of Ragnarok that fit together and various other parts of the myths. I saw an interview with Johan and he said that some of the newer songs have been written just as long as the older ones have, but they release them when they get the right sound they're looking for.
Kinda reminds me of how some of the riffs on Iron Maiden's Brave New World (2002 iirc) date back to the mid-80s...
Not very anti-Christian tbh. How about some fucking Masters Of War or God, His Son, And Holy Whore, or The Sound of Eight Hooves, or Thousand Years Of Oppression, or Abandoned, or even just incorporate general themes like on The Annihilation of Hammerfest or Victorious March?
Just sayin'. Personally, I dig the stories of Vikings battling Christians. For some reason it has more authenticity than just generic Vikings Fight And Now I Lay In My Own Blood (tm) on the last couple. I mean, The Sound Of Eight Hooves is a lyrical masterpiece ; it tells a reasonably complex story elegantly, with appropriate tone, good grammar, and sufficient brievery (no 2 minute narrated sections like certain bands called Bal-Sagoth would use).
Of course it should be noted that we are critiquing lyrics, which are probably the least important aspect. If the music and vocals are good it doesn't matter what Johan says as long as it's about vikings.
The next album could be just "THOOOOOOOR! THOR THOR THOR THOOOOOR! THTHTHTHTHTHTHOR!" for 45 minutes.
And I think you're skimming the surface and not seeing the depths that can be explored if you want to.
Just because I can find more significance in the song than slaughter doesn't mean you can't just bang your head and growl along, either.
One of the beauties of truly great music is that it can affect each of us differently, or the same person in different ways at different times. And Amon Amarth make great music.
I mean, yeah, I just don't consider Valhall awaits me to be very deep - the end is Johann's irony, I suspect. The Hero is actually pretty interesting - it's about a guy who's a badass mercenary but winds up fighting and dying "protecting old and weak" (and then Lying In A Pool Of His Own Blood (tm)), and is praised as a hero. He doesn't want to be seen as a hero, which suggests that he's not such an asshole after all even though he insists that he is.
But to me I never saw anything in Valhall Awaits Me except fucking killing dudes.
As for great music I shudder to think of the floodgates of hell this is going to unleash but while they're my favorite band I don't really think Amon Amarth make "great" music.