When the first chords of “The Blood And The Iron” hit, it was known something special was on the horizon with Einherjer’s North Star. Slaying away with vibrant Viking metal, the Norwegians’ newest output shows aggression with the proper amount of catchiness. “West Coast Groove” brings a smile with a nod to the famous Ace Frehley cover of Russ Ballard’s “New York Groove”. The production is just right with a huge sound befitting of Vikings, but also has that frosty chill that drips black metal. Impressive through and through, North Star shines at the #15 spot of our list.

BraveWords chatted with frontman Frode Glesnes for a feature story; an excerpt below:

As far as Glesnes is concerned, North Star picks up where predecessor Norrøne Spor from 2018 left off. It all comes down to the simple rule of "If it isn't broken, don't fix it." Which, really, has been Einherjer's philosophy since returning from the hiccup that was Battered.

"In my mind this album and the previous one are more or less the same type of albums. I think we wrote both of them in the same musical frame of mind because when we finished recording the last one, I went directly into writing songs for the next album. It's a natural development and I don't really see where one stops and the next one starts. We didn't really discuss any musical direction for North Star; this is just the natural flow. Maybe some people hear a musical change between the two albums but for us they're very much the same."

"We've always been inspired by '80s metal," he continues, "and on the two previous albums I think we allowed ourselves to let that influence shine through much more than it used to. And that's a fun way of working for us. Me and Gerhard (Storesund / drums, keyboards) write all the songs and we come up with these Easter eggs for each other, putting in very obvious tributes for each other to a certain song or a band that has meant a lot to us over the years. We put them in there, just out in the open for all to see. There was quite a bit of that stuff on the previous two albums. It's good fun for us at least."

North Star benefits from a thunderingly fat and heavy sound; exactly the sort of thing you expect from a band that labelled Viking metal. It turns out this was an in-house production with Glesnes overseeing the entire process.

"I appreciate you saying that because I recorded, produced and mixed the album. I did know where I wanted to go with this album, more or less, because on the recording side of things I've done all of them for Einherjer since 2002. For the last two albums I also did the mix, so I kind of did the whole thing. The last album was the first time I did the whole production from recording to mix. I was experimenting with things, I knew what was missing, so I added that extra fat bottom end and all the stuff that really needed to be there. I also do sound outside of the band, both live and in studio; that's my day job and I've been doing it for many years now. I do know what I'm doing (laughs) and I think it's cool that all the pieces came together for this album. I'm really happy with the way things turned out."

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