Viking metal, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Heavy metal 1970
It split off from hard rock and blues rock when Black Sabbath tuned down and wrote riffs on the tritone. Volume, riff and a code of its own - every branch below starts here.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Black Sabbath - the song Black Sabbath. The first thirty seconds are the genre's birth certificate.
Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970) - 2 Then
Folk metal 1993
Traditional instruments and folk melodies built into metal. Every region has written its own version.
Sung and screamed. Clean singing and harsh vocals trade off, often chorus against verse.
Put on
Finntroll - Nattfödd. Black metal at Finnish polka tempo, and it works.
Finntroll, Nattfödd (2004) - 3 What you asked about
Viking metal 1990
Norse themes, male choirs and marching tempos. It sounds like a longship, not a tavern.
Sung and screamed. Clean singing and harsh vocals trade off, often chorus against verse.
Put on
Bathory - Twilight of the Gods. The title track is fourteen minutes of solemnity.
Bathory, Twilight of the Gods (1991) - 4 Where to go next
Progressive metalcore 2010
Metalcore with eight-string guitars, ambient passages and structures borrowed from djent.
Sung and screamed. Clean singing and harsh vocals trade off, often chorus against verse.
Put on
Architects - All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us. Devastating in both senses.
Architects, All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us (2016)
Assembled from the tree: every genre Viking metal descends from, in order. Viking metal has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.