''Arntor'' is the second
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
by
Norwegian black metal
Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with tr ...
band
Windir
Windir ("Warrior" in English) was a black metal band from Sogndal, Norway. The band was formed in 1994 by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Terje "Valfar" Bakken, and released its debut album, '' Sóknardalr'', in 1997. Windir combined blac ...
. It was released on 11 October 1999 through the record label
Head Not Found. It is the last record released with Valfar playing the majority of the instruments.
Track listing
Critical reception
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
praised the album, writing, "this album's importance in the grand scheme of Scandinavian
heavy metal is difficult to overstate, and if
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
's
Bathory were responsible for introducing the Viking metal concept to begin with, then the watershed ''Arntor'' gave Windir a strong case as heirs to their throne, by showing the way forward for the genre's future disciples."
[
]
Personnel
* Valfar
Terje "Valfar" Bakken (3 September 1978 – 14 January 2004) was the lead singer and founder of the Norwegian black metal band Windir. Windir was started as a one-man project, but it was expanded into a full band with the release of their third a ...
– guitar, bass guitar, synthesizer, vocals, accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...
, producer, mixing
Additional personnel
*B. T. Aroy – keyboards on "Ending"
*I. R. Aroy – guitars on tracks 2, 4 and 6
*Steinarson – clean vocals
*Steingrim – drums
*Harjar – lead guitars on "Kong Hydnes haug" and "Kampen"
*Vegard Bakken – photography
* Erik Evju – layout
*J. E. Bjork – graphic design
* Pytten – mixing
References
{{Authority control
Windir albums
1999 albums