You know those albums where the band does some good things and some not-so-good things, but they somehow manage to put it all together for that one absolutely killer song? Add Sig:Ar:Tyr’s Godsaga to the list. This one-man project from Canada play majestic viking metal somewhat similar to bands like Falkenbach, mixing some more folksy, acoustic material with driving guitar melodies and epic songwriting.

The standout track here is the 9-minute epic ‘Eternal Return’, which starts off slowly with some moody clean guitar lines before shifting into some driving chord changes. Finally, Sig:Ar:Tyr launches into the song’s main melody, a towering, warlike riff which will worm its way into your head and make you wish you had a horde of enemy warries to conquer. The rest of ‘Eternal Return’ continues with powerful guitar work and rehashings of the melody before drawing to a close. Other songs like ‘Sleep of the Sword,’ ‘Blood of the North,’ or the title track come close, but nothing on the album quite captures the essence of Sig:Ar:Tyr’s sound quite as well as this particular song.

Softer tracks and acoustic breaks are abundant on Godsaga as well, though Sig:Ar:Tyr takes a somewhat different approach in a few places. The opening track mixes traditional acoustic lines with a folksy vocal melody, actually sounding very close to Falkenbach’s Ok Nefna Tysvar Ty. However, elsewhere on the album Sig:Ar:Tyr’s solos and softer melodic lines seem to be heavily influenced by classical guitar, which I felt sounded a little out of place. Imagine transplanting some of the solos and leads from Tiamat’s Wildhoney onto a viking metal album and you’ll get an idea of what I mean.

Whether or not picking up Godsaga is worthwhile to you probably depends on your feelings about viking metal in general. At the very least I’d recommend downloading and checking out ‘Eternal Return,’ which should give you a pretty good idea of whether or not you’ll like the rest of the album. Godsaga, while maybe not perfect, is certainly a pretty mature effort from these guys, and should put Sig:Ar:Tyr on the map for a lot of black metal fans if they’re not already.