While most bands in Pagan / Viking Metal, obviously influenced by BATHORY’s "Hammerheart"-era, rather tell of deeds long gone and partially deliver marvellous results (just take FALKENBACH or MOONSORROW as two examples), the Norse bands showed at the beginning of the nineties that it is not enough to hail their forefathers with hymns, but that they are still capable of raping, plundering and killing themselves. The French guys of HIMINBJØRG seem very much inspired by those Norwegians, especially ENSLAVED’s "Frost" and HELHEIM’s "Jormundgand" do not look too alien to them. While they need two songs to get their sails on full-speed, especially ‘The Galleries Of Time’ and ‘What Was…’ convince me and are a positive surprise if I compare the new album to their 2001 effort "Haunted Shores" which was far too laid back in my opinion. Unfortunately they can’t keep the good impression they made with the aforementioned songs, but they are on a good way. Lyricwise they have left the Norse mythology that I guess they used on their first albums for Celtic mythology, so it might only be wise to drop the Norse sounding name as well. It is obviously a hard decision if just two really good songs are reason enough to buy a complete album, but to me at least these two songs were completely refreshing, as I hadn’t listened to such music quite a long time. Let’s hope they will continue this way and their next album will be full of quality songs.