(Part I)
Amon Amarth is easily one of my favorite bands. They always deliver, both in the studio and live. My first real experience with Amon Amarth was a bit of an accident, as I was just beginning to discover the heavier side of metal at that point in time. It’s a little bit of a story, but it goes something like this:
A well-known, smaller chain of CD/DVD/electronics stores was in the process of going out of business. Part of this process included consolidating much of their remaining stock from already closed stores into my local store, including (as I remember it) a substantial amount of metal albums.
I wish I would have realized the plethora of awesomeness laid before me at the time, as the majority of CDs were less than five dollars, including imports. Now, it’s not that unusual to find CDs priced from five to ten dollars, but at that time, it seemed to be an occasion to celebrate. Although lamenting on that, I don’t think celebration is really in order when a CD store goes out of business. What seems like years ago, several of the bands that I now listen to on a regular basis didn’t have much for North American distribution deals, making albums ridiculously expensive and often much more difficult to get ahold of than they are in the present day.
Anyways, back to the story. I somewhat accidently grabbed a copy of The Avenger. Maybe it was the cover art that got me, or maybe it was the song titles, or maybe something in the back of my mind clicked and I’d remembered that somewhere I’d heard that Amon Amarth was something I might like. Regardless of why I grabbed it, it turned out to be a rather fortunate accident. I listened to the album and knew that I needed to find out more.
As a bit of background for all of you who are thinking “Why didn’t you just check things out on the internet, like every other kid was doing at the time?”: Being a completely broke student and living somewhere with only dial-up internet access isn’t exactly conducive to discovering new music. I didn’t have a single friend who really into the heavier side of metal either, so no one was able to offer any suggestions.
Between becoming busy with education, working more hours than I probably should have and trying to maintain some form of a social life through the resulting exhaustion, the quest to discover more about Amon Amarth went on the backburner.
That is, until Amon Amarth decided to tour with Ensiferum. This is still one of my favorite shows that I’ve attended. I remember that atmosphere of that concert being amazing, and I even chatted with Johan Hegg for some time outside the venue, as I was the only person there beyond bands and crew members. Now, you might be questioning who in their right mind shows up hours early to a small venue, but my post secondary schedule allowed for it and I wasn’t about to drive an hour home and then an hour back into the city later that same day. Especially on my own and especially with the prospect of fighting rush hour downtown. Either way, that concert helped to cement my love for metal and reaffirmed that I had to build a more extensive Amon Amarth discography. After all, you can’t really call one album much of a discography now, can you?
Anyways, that’s just a bit of an introduction for the next few pieces that I plan on writing. Until the next one...
