Grab your axes, shields and helmets and get yourself ready to embark on a journey with a drakkar to go back in time. Stormwarrior takes all of us back in time. To the eighties to be exact. In that era the European metal scene was dominated by the German power and speed metal bands. The comparison with bands like Helloween and Running Wild is obvious.

Musically it’s actually pretty good. I’ve heard their self titled debut and that album got pretty annoying from time to time. It was a heavy metal assault full of clichés and really didn’t appeal to me. Northern Rage on the other hand sounds a lot better. Just like their debut album this album is co-produced by Kai Hansen of Gamma Ray and there are even some tempo changes (which were hardly noticeable on the first album). Along with the promo-cd came some sort of a promotional flyer which said that Stormwarrior was ready to attack Lindisfarne again.

I never paid any attention in history class, so I had no idea what or who Lindisfarne is or was. But after a little bit of research I found out that it actually is an existing island near the shores of northern England and southern Scotland. And with this bit of information the puzzle is complete. The theme of this album is about the journey of the Vikings to England and about the conquering of that land. What else could you expect with song titles like ‘Odin’s Warriors’ (which is also released in a Swedish version: ‘Odens Krigare’), ‘And the Northewinde Bloweth’, ‘To Foreign Shores’ and ‘Lindisfarne’.

So if you like true metal with influences from the eighties and bands like Helloween, Running Wild and Gamma Ray, you´ll probably like this album.