Swedish Viking Metal (though, the band itself is quite insistent that they’re a Melodic Death Metal band; six of one, really) band Amon Amarth is not exactly rare in being a Metal band with a name derived from Tolkien — “Amon Amarth” being of one the Elvish names for Mount Doom.
Incidentally, shocked it took until the 2010s for there to be a band called “Thangorodrim.” It sounds cool, it’s where the god of evil lives, and it means “Mountains of Oppression.”
Photo by urtimud.89 on Pexels.com
How was Metal not all over that?
Now, despite the origin of the band’s name and their insistence on not being Viking Metal, they do in fact sing primarily about Vikings: either Norse history or mythology.
They’ve got, like, 47 songs just about Thor…
Which brings us to 2008’s Twilight of the Thunder God and its title track.
For context, in Norse mythology Ragnarök is the cataclysmic end of the world— or, more accurately, worlds.
In brief: Loki will escape his imprisonment for the murder of Baldur riding a ship made of dead men’s fingernails, precipitating the final battle between the gods and giants; Odin will be devoured by the great wolf Fenrir and be avenged by his son Víðarr, who will use his giant boot (yes, really) to pin Fenrir’s jaws to the ground and either stab him in the face or rip him in half; Heimdall and Loki will kill each other, and the entire cosmos will be reduced to ashes.
It gets better…
Several gods will survive and the human race will be repopulated by the pair Líf and Lífþrasir — whose names, incidentally, mean “Life” and… “Líf’s Husband.”
Well that translation is correct, I’m being glib here. A more symbolically relevant meaning would be something like “Lover of Life.”
For his part, Thor is destined to destroy the World Serpent Jörmungand and die in the attempt. His sons Móði and Magni will be among the gods destined to survive Ragnarök and re-emerge in the new cosmos.
Manuscript SÁM 66 in the care of the Árni Magnússon Institute, Iceland. Image via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
The song is clearly about Ragnarök, even notwithstanding the fact that is repeatedly name-dropped in the lyrics:
“Thor! Odin’s son, protector of mankind
Ride to meet your fate, your destiny awaits
Thor! Hlödyn‘s son, protector of mankind
Ride to meet your fate, Ragnarök awaits”Lyrics via Genius.
The song doesn’t actually mention Thor dying during Ragnarök, but, like, it’s called Twilight of the Thunder God, so it doesn’t really take a genius…
It’s not my favourite Amon Amarth song (that’s probably Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags – also from Twilight of the Thunder God and also about Raganarok), but it’s also sufficiently perpetually stuck in my head that whenever somebody utters the word “Thor” in general, and especially in the Marvel movies when they call him “Thor Odinson,” I will fill in the perceived blanks by quietly singing “Protector of mankind, ride to meet your fate…”
Take a listen here, and maybe it’ll get stuck in your head too.
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