“I’ll be shocked if The Devil You Know isn’t absolutely awesome.”

I typed those words in my April column. It was less than a month until said Heaven & Hell album’s April 28th release and I, like many metalheads, was very excited.

Too excited, it turns out, because The Devil You Know (Rhino) is not “absolutely awesome.”

To my credit, I had a qualifier: “Based on the three new songs the group recorded for the 2007 Dio Years compilation, I’ll be shocked if The Devil You Know isn’t absolutely awesome,” was the complete sentence. It’s very important, because all my expectations for the album were based on that trio (“The Devil Cried,” Shadow In The Wind,” and “Ear In The Wall”), but not a single track among The Devil You Know’s 10 approaches that standard.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s respectable. I’ll still listen to”Bible Black” (the closest thing to one of those holy shit Sabbath moments), “Eating The Cannibals,” and “Turning The Screw” five months from now, but “respectable” isn’t what we expect from Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Vinny Appice. And personally, I don’t subscribe to the theory we should just be happy a bunch of guys receiving McDonald’s senior-citizen discounts (sans Appice, who’s 49) can still crank out genuine heavy metal. Yeah, The Devil You Know is infinitely better than anything an Ozzy-fronted Sabbath lineup could have done. Duh. But in 2007 these guys recorded two really, really, really good songs and one great song. That was only two years ago. If you’re capable of something like “Ear In The Wall” (which stands up to anything in the Dio lineup’s catalog) when you’re 59-years old, then you can do it when you’re 61.

A good friend said, “I think the album might just be more of a grower. More Dehumanizer than Heaven And Hell.” Right and wrong. The album is definitely better with each spin, and had I written this review after the initial listen, or even the first five, I would have coined it a total flop. Dehumanizer, though, wasn’t a “grower.” It ruled from the get-go. The very first track, “Computer God,” hammered you in the head. Immediately. The Devil You Know has “Atom And Evil,” a plodding (not generally a bad adjective when referring to Sabbath, of course) tune that promises, but fails to deliver, a huge climax. Dehumanizer had some speedy, almost thrashy, moments like “TV Crimes” and “Time Machine” as well, and The Devil You Know could use some similar pieces.

Again, it should be emphasized the album is in no way bad. With the exception of “Rock And Roll Angel,” the mandatory Dio-going-way-over-the-top song of the record, Devil is good. Good. Not great. I predicted great. I anticipated the best metal record of the year but got, probably, a top-15-ish one instead. Boo fucking hoo, right?

Heaven & Hell plays Charter One Pavilion in Chicago August 19th. Coheed And Cambria opens, so you can avoid going early.

PAGANS & PIRATES: At least Tyr didn’t disappoint. That’s not to say my hopes for By The Light Of The Northern Star (Napalm) were as stratospheric as those for The Devil You Know, but they were high considering the band’s last album, Land.

If you read this column last month, you know how Primordial’s Alan A. Nemtheanga feels about Pagan metal. (If you didn’t, he called it “one small step up in retardation from power metal.”) I think it’s good, fun music when honest and passionate — not done as schtick — though. And nobody does it better than Tyr. Frontman Heri Joensen takes a traditional Faroese (the Faroes are a small cluster of islands halfway between Iceland and Scotland) song/melody and, as he once told “Mosh,” “puts “some heavy metal to it.” That’s what separates his band, and groups like Amon Amarth, from the Pagan/folk/ Viking scene: Tyr is really just a heavy metal group. Though Joensen occasionally throws in a cello or viola, Tyr doesn’t fuss with accordions, bagpipes, and woodwinds. It’s your standard two-guitar, bass, and drums lineup.

Every one of the nine songs on Northern Star (11 if you snag the limited-edition Digipack) is an instant anthem, and “Hold The Heathen Hammer High” might even replace “Hail To The Hammer” (from Land) as Tyr fans’ official theme. Seven of nine songs are in English, too — considerably more than prior albums. Being a selfish American asshole, that’s nice, but “Tróndur í Gøtu” and “Turiò Torkilsdóttir” are good enough to forget language.

No U.S. dates to support the album are scheduled yet, but keep your fingers crossed. Poor ticket sales moved the band’s March gig from the spectacular Pearl Room to the less-so Capone’s. My dreams of witnessing Tyr live were squashed by the room’s sight lines, which are fine for a show with 50 people or so, but non-existent (especially for short shits like me) once a couple hundred heads are present.

Click here to download Tyr’s “Hold The Heathen Hammer High.”

How do three guys from New Jersey who dress like pirates and play thrash qualify as Pagan metal? No idea, but that didn’t stop Paganfest 2 promoters from throwing Swashbuckle on the lineup. If only I had talked to Nemtheanga (Primordial was also on the tour) after a few dates to hear his opinion on this band.

Here’s mine: Ridiculous. Running Wild is pirate metal. These guys are Municipal Waste with lyrics about peg-legs and rum instead of zombies and beer. Even more ridiculous than the album itself is the fact Nuclear Blast expects anybody to be impressed by the fact it was produced by Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal. Eh? He’s Guns N’ Roses’ latest lead guitarist. He’s not Slash, and he doesn’t wear a KFC bucket on his head, but he often plays a guitar shaped like a hand.

The most ridiculous thing yet? I just dedicated 142 words to the merits of something called pirate metal. Avast!

OBEY YOUR MASTER: If you know who Paul Speckmann is, you probably know two things about him: 1) He and his band, Master, were around when death metal bloomed into a legit sub-genre, and 2) he rarely gets any credit for it. Maybe Master’s new label, Pulverised, can help inform the uneducated. Speckmann (a native Chicagoan who now calls the Czech Republic home) and his bandmates recently signed a deal with the Singapore-based record company and plan to release a new album by year’s end. Master’s last studio effort, Slaves To Society, was released in 2007 via Twilight-Vertrieb.

The band plays Nite Cap in Chicago July 11th and returns to Illinois July 31st for the Central Illinois Metalfest at the Canopy Club in Urbana. Immolation, Goatwhore, Anal Cunt, Vital Remains, and Daath are also part of the two-day CIM lineup. Get all the details at www.myspace.com/centralillinoismet alfest.

– Trevor Fisher

This whole Pagan metal/Viking metal/folk metal thing is becoming awfully confusing, and you need look no further than the Pagan Knights tour for proof.

Most of those involved in so-called “pagan metal,” will tell you it’s labeled such for its historical and mythological pre-Christian angle. A sub-genre named after a shared ideology is uncommon in heavy metal, where nearly everything else is categorized by its sound (power metal, thrash, prog, nu, etc.). Even styles like black metal, which were forged in part by a reaction to religion, has numerous countless acts unconcerned with the “dangers of Christianity.” Yet, nobody has figured out what to do with bands like Suidakra and its Pagan Knights tourmates. The German group – around since the mid ’90s – isn’t outwardly Pagan lyrically, at least judging by Crógacht, released earlier this month by Wacken. It is, however, very folk-influenced, as the core trio of Arkadius, Lars, and Marcus employs guest musicians armed with bagpipes and tin whistles. Celtic folk, actually, which is sometimes a genre in itself. Tyr (read “Caught In A Mosh” for an interview with the band) is definitely Pagan, definitely folk (music is often traditional Faroese), and definitely Viking (named after a Norse God). Be careful tagging Tyr Viking metal, though. That’s presuming it sounds something like Bathory or Amon Amarth . . . and it doesn’t. Nothing like either, actually. Ironically, both bands are much closer in style to Suidakra’s aggressive death metal. Confused? How about the fact Alestorm is none of the above? The Scottish band describes itself as “pirate metal.” We’d complain, if the thought — and sound — of Scottish pirate metal wasn’t so awesome.

– Trevor Fisher

Click here to download Alestorm’s “Wolves Of The Sea.”

Few bands can claim their home country’s best-selling album. Even fewer are heavy metal bands. A “Viking metal” metal band? No way.

Heri Joensen and his Tyr bandmates (Terji Skibenaes, Gunnar H. Thomsen, and Kári Streymoy) can boast such a feat, though. At one time (and maybe still, Joensen says) Eric The Red (2003; Tutl – re-released in 2006 by the band’s current label, Napalm) was The Faroe Islands’ most-popular album. Of course, The Faroes’ – 18 islands and 545 square feet – population is roughly 48,500, so competition isn’t exactly cutthroat. But hey, the most popular album! The country’s tourism Web site even brags about the headbanging native sons!

Considering it is touring the United States for the second time in a year (March 11th at The Pearl Room in Mokena with Alestorm and Suidakra), Tyr’s popularity doesn’t seem confined to its homeland. Joensen took a break from recording the band’s new record (April release), By The Light Of The Northern Star, to phone “Mosh.”

M: The new album will be released less than a year after Land. Why so fast?
HJ: There are several reasons, I think. Land did not receive the great welcome that we hoped for. At least not compared to Ragnarok. And the intentions we had with [Land] didn’t quite work out because even though a lot of people, especially readers, liked Ragnarok, it was called a very progressive album, not easily accessible record. So we tried to make a make a much simpler and [more] accessible album with Land, but most readers have called it an even more complex album. So we kind of changed the formula. We have plenty of material, so there’s no reason to wait.

M: Land was fantastic, though. That must have been disappointing.
HJ: Yeah, it’s not catastrophic, though. I think it sold more than Ragnarok, so it’s doing O.K. I was disappointed that it didn’t work out as I intended. I clearly don’t see the music as the listeners do. I think it’s a much simpler and straightforward album, but people disagree with me.

M: Last year you toured the United States for the first time as part of Paganfest. You’re coming back, so it must have gone well?
HJ: Yes, yes, it went quite well. Over the expectations of the people who arranged it, at least.

M: What were your expectations, having never toured here before? Did you have any?
HJ: Yeah, I did actually because a lot of people have been writing to us for a long time – since the first album – asking when we were going to come to the U.S. People have been asking, and apparently they all turned out. Yeah, I was expecting a little bit, but it went over my expectations as well. I mean, the amount of people every night who knew the songs by heart – I did not expect that. People singing along in Faroese, you know?

M: Are you surprised at how popular “Viking metal” has become?
HJ: I don’t know to what extent I’m surprised. There’s a lot of bands in this genre who have worked very hard for many years to make a living of this. And then there are a lot of other bands, probably more, who just jump on the bandwagon to be part of the trend. When that starts, it’s a sign that something is happening. I don’t know really which end it starts from, but we got into this not knowing anything about Viking metal, Pagan metal, folk metal . . . anything. We just did this completely naturally. I didn’t know any of the bands that we are associated with now when we started. I think that goes for some of the other bands from Scandinavia. So it’s a very natural development for metal right now. Exactly why that is, I think is a very complicated question. But this music feels very natural to me, so I’m not personally surprised that it’s popular because I like it.

M: What about the term Viking metal? Silly?
HJ: Yeah, I’ve never been fond of these labels because . . . take for example Viking metal. Bands like Amon Amarth or Bathory are called Viking metal, but they sound nothing like us; we sound nothing like them. So it’s a useless term. If all those bands are Viking metal, than Viking metal really doesn’t apply to a style of music. You can combine any terms you like, Viking, Pagan, folk, whatever, and you’ll never describe to people what the music is. But on the other hand, I see the necessity to have some kind of labeling, and I will use it if people ask, but I’m pretty indifferent about it.

M: Do you listen to other bands now?
HJ: Yes I do, and I like some of them very, very much. The second tour we were on was with Vintersorg and Amon Amarth, and those [bands], I didn’t appreciate the music so much, when we were on the tour, which I regret because now they are my two absolute favorite bands. I look so much forward to the [new] Vintersorg. So yeah, I’m into the stuff so much now, and it probably rubs off on our playing. We have been very musically different from the rest of the Viking metal scene, but I think we’re getting closer by each album.

M: Tyr combines traditional tunes with its own songwriting, so what comes first?
HJ: I always start with a traditional melody. I might hear it on the radio, I might have it on CD, or I might know it from memory, and I just try to put some chords to that and see what I can make out. If it sounds good to me I’ll work further on it and put some heavy metal to it. That’s about 95 percent of our songs. Occasionally I find a cool riff, make a melody to it myself, but it usually turns out pretty folky anyway.

M: What about lyrics? How do you decide if you’re going to do a song in English or Faroese?
HJ: That’s an issue for me, that I’m not quite so comfortable with. It’s very difficult for me to write a lyric in Faroese that I’m satisfied with. It’s much easier in English because I’m used to hearing heavy metal in English, and it sounds much more natural to me.

M: I would have thought the opposite, but that makes sense.
HJ: Yeah, there’s no famous heavy metal band that sings in Faroese so there’s no way for that to sound natural. But I’m working on it. I’ve written very few lyrics in Faroese because most of them are traditional – so I didn’t write them, I just used them. The few that I have written, there are two whole songs then there are bits and pieces in several songs. I work on it for a very long time, and it takes a lot for me to be satisfied with it. So to write a whole album in Faroese would take a lot of energy for me, and I don’t usually have time for it. It’s happened more than once where I start something in Faroese and then I say “Fuck it,” and then I write the lyrics in English.

NEWS: The schedule and headliners are still to be set, but this year’s Chicago Powerfest goes down May 7th, 8th, and 9th at The Pearl Room, and confirmed bands include Devildriver, Soil, Kiuas, Novembers Doom, Perzonal War, Assailant, Sheephead, and Mindwarp Chamber. The 7th is the kick-off party with the Paganfest 2 tour (Korpiklaani, Primor-dial, Eluvietie, Moonsorrow, Blackguard, and Swashbuckle). Check Chicagopowerfest.com for updates . . . Twenty-something years later and Enforcer will finally release a CD! The Chicago band’s story is fascinating: It formed in the early ’80s armed with awesome, Trouble-ish tunes, released a few demo tapes, and that was it. Yet during an extended period of public inactivity, the original members still rehearsed. Last year Enforcer officially ended its unofficial retirement by playing – and slaying – Metal Up Your Tap (shameless self promotion). On March 31st, Stormspell Records releases 25th Anniversary Remasters, comprising a CD of 12 1984 studio demos/rehearsal tracks and a live DVD.

mosh@illinoisentertainer.com

– Trevor Fisher