Formed in Tumba, a municipal locality and the seat of Botkyrka Municipality in Stockholm County, Sweden in 1992, melodic death metal quartet Amon Amarth adopted their name inspired in Sindarin — a fictional language created by British writer, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien — that refers to Mount Doom, a volcano in Middle-Earth that stands as the equivalent to the term Midgard of Norse mythology, describing the human-inhabited world.
Throughout their long musical career which originated from the dismemberment of Scum — a death metal act founded in 1988 by Paul Mäkitalo (former musician of black metal act Dark Funeral) — Amon Amarth has released ten studio records, a compilation, EP, and video album, including a reasonable share of music videos. Nonetheless, ‘Once Sent from the Golden Hall’ — their debut full-length album — was only released six years after Amon Amarth’s formation — on February 10th, 1998 through the multinational company, Metal Blade Records, owned by the notorious Brian Slagel, this proceeding the release of the ‘Sorrow Throughout the Nine Worlds‘ MCD through Singapore-based independent record label, Pulverised Records, which sold 6,000 copies worldwide.
In 2014, Amon Amarth extended its record contract with Metal Blade Records for three more albums. After prolonging the record settlement, Amon Amarth released ‘Twilight of the Thunder God,’ which featured guest appearances from Lars Göran Petrov of old-school death metallers Entombed, Roope Latvala of Finnish melodic death metal act Children of Bodom, and the also Finnish, yet cello-driven chamber and oriented gothic rockers, Apocalyptica. Supplementing the release of the album was an eight-page comic strip based on Norse mythology which was released by professionally printed magazines in Europe. ‘Twilight of the Thunder God’ has been weighed as a breakthrough album, that ended up at the number 7 position in Revolver Magazine’s Top 20 Albums that year. In between, Amon Amarth was also named “Best Breakthrough Act” at Metal Hammer’s prestigious Golden Gods Awards.
On March 19th, 2015, Amon Amarth published that it had parted ways with drummer Fredrik Andersson after seventeen years of collaboration on its official Facebook page. One year later, Amon Amarth proceed with the release of their tenth album, titled ‘Jomsviking’ on March 25th, 2016, featuring a session drummer, Tobias Gustafsson, which was then, September 30th, 2016, replaced by Jocke Wallgren, currently Amon Amarth’s full time drummer.
From March 22nd to 25th, Amon Amarth performed four intimate album release shows in London, in the United Kingdom, in Paris, France, Tilburg in the Netherlands and Berlin, Germany, to celebrate the release of ‘Jomsviking.’ The tenth album was mixed and produced by Andy Sneap and released on March 25th, 2016, by Metal Blade Records.
Amon Amarth commenced their Jomsviking United States Tour 2017 as a promotional support to their ‘Jomsviking’ conceptual studio record which deals with the tragic, historical conflict and tales of revenge that originated in Sweden backed up by their melodic death vibe of anthemic metal. The tour began this past April 30th, 2017, throughout the United States with record company comrades Goatwhore. The tour will continue across the country until May 21st and that includes eighteen dates. Included are their live performances at the country’s premiere musical festivals Welcome To Rockville, Carolina Rebellion, Dark Lord Day, Northern Vision, and Rock On The Range.
Goatwhore returned to the road on May 1st, 2017 in Pensacola, Florida, the United States, as a support act for Amon Amarth for the following two weeks, completing their set on May 20th at Louisville, Kentucky. The extreme New Orleans-based, Louisiana metallers most recently completed the recording of their follow-up studio album to the globally acclaimed ‘Constricting Rage Of The Merciless’ full-length, which is titled ‘Vengeful Ascension.’
Amon Amarth will be performing as headliners alongside Norwegian black metallers Abbath as their special guests on June 10th, 2017 at Hollywood, La Calera Km 4.5 Via La Calera, Bogotá, Colombia as part of the Jomsviking Latin America Tour 2017, an event organised by Immigrant Records. The concert is scheduled to commence at 15:00 and the tickets cost $ 30.00 for pre-sale, and $ 40.00 on site. The tour includes also Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico as part of their itinerary.
