Solvet Saeclum is marked by a most remarkable album cover; every time I play this record, the hellish space art manages to keep me captive for at least a few minutes. The laughing skeleton and the serpentine Communist, lifting his red flag high, have a charming effect on both eyes and mind, while the large planets and numerous rockets make for a bombastic, hellish landscape.

Stylistically, Solvet Saeclum is a very interesting, as their brand of Technical Death Metal is quite unique. Many Tech Death-outfits, like Gorod and Ascariasis, have a tone, cold as ice, while Ophidian I literally burn through forty minutes of fire and brimstone, spread about over nine infernal songs.

Won’t be long now. Skálmöld – kudos to motig for warning us for them – a band of not-even-so-very-bearded Icelandic Vikings has set off on its quest to conquer Metalheads worldwide. The fresh, meaning they formed only in 2009, band from the island’s capital of Reykjavik released its debut album, Baldur, locally in late 2010. In late July of this year, they released it worldwide through Nuclear Blast.

If you’ve ever heard Viking Metal, this’ll go over and beyond. The album is fully in Icelandic, which apparently is the one remaining language closest to the Vikings’ Old Nordic. A very befitting language for their game then.