Frosty guitars, hateful screams and a boat full of ruthless souls heading from Norway to conquer whole Europe – sounds familiar in some way even if the surviving Viking / Black Metal bands had become a rare species in their cold home country. Listening to ELITE is like a trip to old abandon shores right in the middle of the Battle of Lindisfarne and their third release “We Own The Mountains” is for sure one of the best Folter Records releases of the last years (No Colours released their former two albums plus one limited EP). The band is navigating their vessel on direct course into the next storm and bands like TULUS and LORD BELIAL (taking the ‘blackened’ songs into consideration) or the honorable WINDIR (mainly due to their emphasized Norwegian vocals and some pathos) are passing by. I can’t say anything about the quality of their former releases but “We Own The Mountains” is breathing a kind of new wind into the empty sails of the once so admired Norway Metal scene. The major advantage of this release is a great guitar work, nearly all atmosphere is created by them plus the variety in the presented 10 songs. The album can offer short attacks (‘Volvens Vinter Seid’) or more hymnal tracks (‘Rovnatt’) but everything had been put together to create a convincing album. With this great album and the new record company at their side (plus some kind of promotion) – I ‘m more than convinced that this Norwegian horde is well prepared for the new battle season 2009. www.folter666.de, www.elitenorway.com