Album Review - Viking Soul

The Great Metal Debate Podcast

This time around we have a review of French metallers Álfheim and their debut album Viking Soul. This is Álfheim’s first album, so I don’t have access to a back catalogue to use in centering this band musically. Their social media profile describes the music as intense melodic death metal, so for time being we’ll use that as the starting context. Álfheim hails from France which, while not quite rivaling Sweden or Finland in quantity and quality of melodeath bands, in recent years has generated some exciting new artists you including Yyrkoon and Akiavel. “Born To Betray” is the first full song on the album – a nice banger featuring singer Morganne Herbreteau providing some strong harsh vocals alongside. However, I was somewhat unclear about the song’s arrangement. In particular, I found the transition to the first chorus to be a bit confusing… like, I wasn’t sure whether that was a chorus, bridge, interlude, or did we just get much more proggy than I was expecting. Still, some nice riffage and overall a good aggressive track I can bang my head and scream to. The next track “Runes” is even more uptempo. All harsh vocals here, along with a pleasant melody that gave me a bit of an Arch Enemy feel. I really liked the structure and feel of this song. The pace gets pulled back for the song “Get Out”, featuring some soft singing with light supporting guitar on the verses. This one is really well-composed, and the moderated tempo allows the guitars to shine not just on the lead break but throughout the track. This would be a great one to hear live in concert. The title track “Viking Soul” is also the video single for the album. I thought this song most effectively contrasted singer‘s clean and harsh vocals, and I’d like to hear more of exactly this contrast in the future. However, the gallopy guitar sound isn’t really my thing, so this track didn’t appeal to me like some of the others. The final two song are “Until Dawn” and “Release’. Both are solid and worth the wait until the end. “Until Dawn” starts with a slow burn that I really enjoyed - nice pacing that sets the stage for the mid-tempo metal that is to come. This one probably had the most enticing clean vocals of the entire album in the chorus. I honestly wasn’t expecting that approach, and Morganne’s singing was a pleasant surprise which I wish they’d continued to employ through the finale. “Release” is a 7+ minute song that has a haunting intro and then transitions into another light verse reminiscent of what we heard earlier on “Get Out”. All in all I enjoyed Viking Soul. However, even understanding this album is constructed as something of a demo effort, I do feel it is somewhat unfocused and lacking of thematic consistency. After many listenings, I’m not sure I can say explicitly what Álfheim is trying to accomplish musically. But there are some hints at sounds and ideas that are exciting to me and I see a lot of potential in the band. You can access Álfheim’s Viking Soul on all major digital platforms – Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, and YouTube. Give ‘em a listen and see what you think, especially if you are a melodeath fan. I generally enjoyed it, and am really looking forward to hearing more from this band in the future.