Fate of Norns is the fifth full-length studio album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 by the Swedish death metal

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

 band Amon Amarth

Amon Amarth

Amon Amarth is a Swedish viking metal band from Tumba, Sweden founded in 1992, and takes its name from the Sindarin translation of Mount Doom, a location in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. The band comprises vocalist Johan Hegg, guitarists Olavi Mikkonen and Johan Söderberg, bassist Ted Lundström...

. It was released on September 6, 2004 through Metal Blade Records

Metal Blade Records

Metal Blade Records is a record label which was founded by Brian Slagel in 1982. The U.S. corporate office for Metal Blade is located in Agoura Hills, California. It also has offices in Arizona, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The label is distributed in the U.S. by Sony BMG Music...

. This album continued their slower, heavier sound which started on the previous album Versus the World. Before Fate of Norns was officially released by Metal Blade, promo

Promotional recording

A promotional recording, or promo, is an audio or video recording distributed for free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available...

 copies were distributed with CD-ROM

CD-ROM

A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....

 extras including pictures, biographies, sheets and logos. The album was released in conventional LP

LP album

The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

 format as well as a limited digipak

Digipak

Digipak is a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI World Ltd., an Atlas Holdings company.-Features:...

 edition. The latter includes a live bonus DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

, Amon Amarth Live at Grand Rokk, which features live recordings and three-camera footage of a live performance in Reykjavík

Reykjavík

Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...

, Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 on March 5, 2004. "The Pursuit of Vikings" was also made into a music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

.

When asked to comment on the album, lead vocalist Johan Hegg, remarked:

Track listing

1. "An Ancient Sign Of Coming Storm" – 4:39
2. "Where Death Seems To Dwell" – 4:58
3. "The Fate Of Norns" – 5:58
4. "The Pursuit Of Vikings" – 4:30
5. "Valkyries Ride" – 4:57
6. "The Beheading Of A King" – 3:24
7. "Arson" – 6:48
8. "Once Sealed In Blood" – 4:50

Bonus DVD (limited edition only)

Amon Amarth live at Grand RokkReykjavík at Reykjavík

Reykjavík

Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...

, Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

:

1. "Death in Fire"
2. "The Last with Pagan Blood"
3. "For the Stabwounds in Our Backs"
4. "Masters of War"
5. "The Sound of Eight Hooves"
6. "Bloodshed"
7. "Versus the World"
8. "Siegreicher Marsch"

Band members

• Johan Hegg – vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  
• Olavi Mikkonen – guitar
  Electric guitar
  An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
  
  
• Johan Söderberg – guitar
• Ted Lundström – bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Fredrik Andersson – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  

Other

• Mixed and mastered at Berno Studio by Berno Paulsson
• Horn
  Horn (instrument)
  The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
  
  on "Arson" by Udo Schlangschnabel