''Arntor'' is the second studio album by

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

black metal Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw ( lo-fi) recording, unconventional song structures, and an em ...

band

Windir Windir ("Warrior" in English language, 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 c ...

. It was released on 11 October 1999 through the record label

Head Not Found Head Not Found is a Norwegian record label, a sublabel of Voices Music & Entertainment, specializing in various heavy metal subgenres. They describe the genres as Black, Death, Doom, Thrash, Gothic, Viking Metal and Ambient. Their parent label is ...

. 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 music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

praised the album, writing, "this album's importance in the grand scheme of Scandinavian heavy metal is difficult to overstate, and if Sweden'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, 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 Erik Evju is a Norwegian musician, playing dark neo-folk music under the name Weh. He recorded several demos between 2002 and 2006, all of which were compiled and eventually released on CD in 2011 via Soulseller Records as the double album ''Or ...

- layout *J. E. Bjork - graphic design *

Pytten Eirik Hundvin (born 8 February 1950), also known as Pytten, is a Norwegian producer and recording engineer for many classic black metal albums, mainly by Norwegian bands, nearly all of which were recorded in the Grieg Hall in Bergen. Hundvin is t ...

- mixing

References

{{Authority control Windir albums 1999 albums