Reviews

Armored Dawn – Viking Zombie

January 20, 2020

Please, my dear fan of Armored Dawn, do not start your listening by first track “Ragnarok.” I did and I was almost contacting the responsible PR if he had sent me the right archieves due to the so different sonance from “Power of Warrior” reviewed here two years ago. The feeling was so intense that I had to search for the album and former reviews to make sure I wasn’t reviewing the wrong album. No, against all odds, it is alright. I found out that this radical change was willingly done by the band in a bold move to reach a wider audience. Well, we all know bands that have been there before.

The first impression the fan gets is that “Viking Zombie” could be instead “Viking White Zombie,” if you know what I’m saying, due to the extreme parallels of their new sonance. Besides that, “Viking Zombie” is kind of a conceipt album telling the story of the warrior couple Bálder and Sigrid and on the pursuit on new territories by the norsemen in circa 850 AD. There are eleven tracks dedicated to tell the story of the warrior couple and their pursuit for glory interwoven by a groovy and electronic version of Metal that is currently called alternative Metal or else. But it’s too far from the original sonic concept Armored Dawn built. I confess I looked all around Youtube, Google and things just to make sure if I was listening to the right music. As I said before, “Viking Zombie” is an alternative Metal effort with all its pros and cons. Very little things remember the mighty Power Metal the band used to do until “Power of Warrior.” So, there are a lot of sonic effects, keyboards and very few guitar solos. Robbie Zombie must be proud.

My experience tells that those deep changes always backfire. Of course, I may be wrong.

Armored Dawn “Viking Zombie” was released on October 18th via Whyte Label.

Track Listing: