Beside listening to the new PRIMAL FEAR over and over again ever since I got it, I had to review SIG:AR:TYR's first album. Hammerheart Records are doing reissues of the first three albums of the one man band and they are releasing a new album in March of this year.

Well this blew me completely away, this was outstanding. It will be difficult to analyze each and every song like I usually do because most of the songs are instrumental. The flow of the album is like none I ever heard before. I listened to it in one sitting and time passed by so fast it was incredible. I said at the end, wait, what? It's already finished and 50 minutes already elapsed!This could have been the soundtrack to a movie about Vikings or Nordic Lore. It was that good. Each song has its own flavor and sometimes it's minimalistic. Some songs don't even have any drums on them but it still has a lot of energy.

There is constant acoustic guitar throughout the album but some songs have more electric and distorted guitars like the first and sixth song per say. These two songs sound a lot like ENSLAVED (without the vocals evidently) and remind me a lot of the last two albums of those Metal Legends. Without the vocals, you could almost say it was some awesome ENSLAVED and that is no small feat!

I am always amazed by a guy that plays every instrument on an album. I mean just one instrument is hard enough but this great is freakishly good. The time and effort to put overlapping acoustic guitars (on one song you have dueling acoustic guitars and it's a treat to hear to be honest) and the other instruments as well.

We don't have a lot of vocals on this debut album but when we do it means a lot. It's not really singing, it sounds more like narration or spoken word actually. You might have 5 minutes of vocals on 52 minutes of music and it doesn't affect the overall quality of the album. In ''The Dead Giant's Tale'', you can hear duel vocals with the narration and a Black Metal voice. I am not a fan of Black Metal but felt this was pretty good and reminded me a lot of the Atmospheric Black Metal from bands like DIMMU BORGIR. According to information I gathered, "Snowborne'' is an homage to Quorthon from BATHORY, a legendary Black/Viking Metal band who had a big influence on Deamonskald.

This is a masterpiece and you can feel yourself transported in the Nordic lands and sightseeing while listening to this album. Even though it's instrument, you can feel the music, you can understand it and you can interpret it the way you want to. I like music that make me think and this was a great example of an instrumental album that will pass the test of time. Can't wait to hear the other reissues of him albums!<