In 1998 the debut full length from Swedish viking death metallers Amon Amarth, Once Sent From The Golden Hall on Metal Blade Records.  Eleven years later the album has been reissued as a two-disc digipack collection remastered with a second disc featuring the entire album performed live in 2008.

It’s been roughly seven or eight years since I last listened to Once Sent From The Golden Hall so my memory was a little hazy about this release so I began by giving the original disc a thorough listen.  After listening to the album I was quickly reminded why I became a fan of Amon Amarth to begin with; blackened death metal with deep booming vocals and catchy chugging riffs backed by a vicious percussive assault.  This album was written years before the band toned things down and began writing more melodic material, this is just straight forward in-your-face fist-pumping, head-banging blackened death metal.

Back in 1998 the music of Amon Amarth had a strong black metal vibe to the material, with higher-pitched guitars, deep raspy shrieks and more up-tempo material.  It wasn’t full-bore black metal, but it was definitely death metal with a big influence from the black metal that was popular in that era.  The song writing wasn’t quite at the band’s peak, but the material is all very catchy and easy to get into without being simplistic.  There’s plenty of decent riffs and solos spread throughout the album’s forty-four minute runtime and overall the disc is a very enjoyable slab of death metal, and a definite sign of things to come.

The mix on the original release was good and powerful although the bass and vocals were a little muffled.  Listening back to this release again it’s obvious the disc could have used a slightly cleaner tone to give the guitars, bass and vocals a bit more depth and to make the drums stand out a bit better.  Every little thing I could think of that could have been improved with the original mix has been polished up and then some with Once Sent From The Golden Hall (Bonus Edition).  The bass is much thicker than on the original, giving the music the mule kick of the Fate Of Norns and With Oden On Our Side-era Amon Amarth.  The vocals of Johan Hegg are much clearer on the reissue.  In some areas they’re a little too clear and stand out a bit, but for the most part the vocals sound much better.  The guitars, drums and bass all sound much more clear.  The original mix sounded a little muffled, but the reissue every instrument is clear.

As an added bonus, the band have included the track “Siegreicher Marsch”, a German-sung version of the track “Victorious March.” It’s a real trip listening to this familiar tune sung in German.  The production on this version is much different than the remastered version in English.  Much rougher with a really loud kick drum and really raw vocals and guitars.  I’m assuming this is just a rough mix.  Kind of a cool bonus, but not really necessary.

The second disc, as I mentioned earlier, is Once Sent From The Golden Hall performed live in it’s entirety in Bochum, Germany on December 28th, 2008.  The band starts off sounding a little rough at first, but early on they get into their groove and perform the album solidly.  It does take a track or two to warm up to the live recording, but once I did I was able to sit back and listen to the full recording in it’s entirety, which I don’t usually do with live recordings.  I was really blown away by the passion of the German fans for their music, the tracks people recognized the whole crowd would belt out the lyrics, it’s actually really cool and the live disc, on it’s own, is well worth a listen.

Combining a much better version of Once Sent From The Golden Hall with a bonus live disc was a stroke of genius and is definitely one of the best reissues I’ve heard to date.  That said, if you already own the original album, I don’t know if it’s really necessary to buy the reissue, unless you’re a die hard fan, but if you don’t already own it, it’s definitely worth picking up.  It’s not my favorite Amon Amarth disc, but I’m really pleased with the way this reissue turned out.  Recommended!

Review byTeufel