Svartsot – Live review, September 2007
Svartsot, live at Café von Hatten, Randers (DK) 
You might not know this Danish band, but you just might like them. The genre is “Viking Metal”, but while that might make some frown, Svartsot incorporates a lot of interesting elements into their music, such as flutes and tribal drums, which adds an (sorry about the expression, Svartsot) almost Irish feel to the music. OK – Irish folkmusic and Scandinavian folkmusic share at least a few similarities. Dressed in “authentic” viking-gear (chain mail shirts – 20-40kg…!), an axe (leadsinger Claus Gnudtzmann almost took the head off a fan by accident), long hair and beards, Svartsot entered the stage like they owned it.
The mini-concert at the hot venue at Von Hatten was ment to celebrate the fact that Svartsot has recorded their debut-album which is to be released on Napalm Records in November. It revealed a band that has grown substantially as a unit, and now play so tight that it sometimes even rivaled their recordings. The two guitarists, Cris Frederiksen and Michael “Hellboy” Andersen, did a nice job, and the abandonment of the “Metal-Zone sound” is a improment that elevates the sound of the band enormously. Lead singer Claus Gnudtzmann has gotten even better at growling, and now, the stories of folklore, excess drinking of meed, gals etc. could be heard – again – good job at making a solid concept better. The new basist Martin Kielland-Brandt had his concert debut at this gig, and did a solid job. He doesn’t look like the rest of the band, but that is quickly forgotten.
While new songs (several of the songs had previously never been played live before) showed a band with one foot in the viking-sagas and one foot in the Iron Maiden-que metal, the older songs like Tvende Ravne, Skønne Møer, and especially the hit-to-be Jotunheimsfærden, sent the crowd into frenzy. The older songs actually sounds a little more true to the viking sound, due to the excellent use of flutes, battling the guitars.
In all, a great show. Why then only 4/6 rating? two main reasons. The show was too short – nothing that has had a major influence on this review, but the party could have continued for a long time, if it hadn’t been for the sound engineer, who had to leave. He was also – by far – the reason why the rating has dropped a one or two. While the band might not have played flawlessly, they constantly battled a sound that, while loud, consisted mainly of drums and bass. The vocals were far far to low, and one actually got a better sound if one stood so close to the stage that the PA and monitors could both be heard… I look forward to seeing the band with a new sound engineer soon!
Listen to one of the newer songs:
Mp3:
[Svartsot: Gravøllet]
Video from a previous concert:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Denmark License.
