ANKH TV

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Forging Myth into Metal

Chain Breaker arrives as one of the standout visual statements from Brothers Of Metal’s album Emblas Saga, released via AFM Records. Framed around Norse mythology and delivered with the band’s trademark blend of triumphant power metal, cinematic choral hooks, and battle-charged riffing, the track turns the legend of Fenrir into an anthem built for massed voices. The 2021 official video extends that mythology into the physical world, pairing the band’s larger-than-life sound with vivid, character-led storytelling.

Song Context and Album Aesthetics

Emblas Saga is a record steeped in mythic world-building. Chain Breaker fits that arc by focusing on the catastrophic charge of Fenrir, the wolf whose freedom signals the unraveling of the cosmic order. Musically and lyrically, the song places itself at the hinge between fate and resistance. Brothers Of Metal work within a Scandinavian power metal language that prizes melody, rhythmic drive, and narrative clarity, creating a track that feels immediate while remaining embedded in tradition.

Mythic Narrative and Lyrical Focus

The lyrics trace a path from ominous whispers to apocalyptic release. References to Sköll and Hati, the wolves fated to devour the light, anchor the chorus in Ragnarök lore. The verses recount the gods’ desperate recourse to dwarven mastery, evoking the chain wrought from impossibilities, a nod to Gleipnir’s famous ingredients in myth. Lines about “the spit of birds,” “breath of fish,” and “women’s beards” crystallize that impossible craft, suggesting both the gods’ ingenuity and the limits of control.

The repeated invocation of “Chain breaker” works on several levels. It names Fenrir as the irresistible force, it becomes a rallying cry in the chorus, and it frames the track’s momentum around a single, hammering image. The lyric’s sense of inexorability, the way “the twines that hold him start to yield,” ties the story to the band’s martial cadence. Fate is not just discussed, it is felt in the physicality of the music.

Sound, Arrangement, and Performance

Chain Breaker moves with the precision and scale that define Brothers Of Metal. The guitars lock into a muscular, mid-to-fast tempo riff that favors strong downstrokes and harmonized leads. Underneath, drums power the arrangement with double-kick surges and emphatic snare accents that heighten the chorus’s chant-like impact. Bass lines reinforce the guitars in the verse before expanding into more melodic counterpoint across transitions, adding low-end weight without clogging the mix.

Vocally, the band deploys contrasting timbres to amplify the narrative. Clear, melodic lines carry the lyrical exposition, set against grittier textures that embody the wolf’s menace. The chorus leans into layered gang vocals, an approach that broadens the hook and translates seamlessly to a live setting. Subtle keyboard and orchestral pads are woven into the background, adding width and a sense of ancient scale without overshadowing the core of the band’s performance.

The production by Erik Berglund favors clarity and punch. Guitars are bright enough to cut through the choral stacks, while drums are mixed for maximal impact, lending the track a battlefield cadence. The arrangement avoids clutter, instead building tension in cycles, each return to the chorus feeling heavier, more inevitable, as the song bears down on its final proclamation: “He is the breaker of chains.”

Visual Storytelling and Direction

Directed by Jonas Helmersson and Sara Gustavsson, the video renders the song’s mythic conflict through iconography and character work. Brokk and Sindre, renowned in folklore for their smithing, appear as pivotal figures in the forging of the binding. Odin enters as the architect of order, while Fenrir’s presence drives the drama, a constant threat at the frame’s edge. The casting underscores those roles with evocative physicality, turning the narrative beats of the lyrics into screen moments that are easy to follow yet rich in symbolism.

Alexander Gustavsson’s cinematography highlights rough-hewn textures, from forged metal to worn leather, while the color grading by Helmersson tilts toward ashen blues and ember reds. The palette suggests a world caught between ice and fire, calm and cataclysm. Close-ups of hammer and anvil cut against wide shots of looming treelines and open skies, situating the craft of the dwarves within a landscape that feels primordial. Movement is purposeful: the camera tracks the ritual of creation, the mounting anxiety of the gods, and the animal power of Fenrir, whose looming presence becomes the video’s dark gravitational center.

Costuming and props sell the world without excess. The smithy scenes are tactile, the chain is shot as an object of mystery rather than mere metal, and the wolf’s threat is suggested through performance and framing rather than overexposure. The result is a visual narrative that mirrors the song’s escalation, from whispered portents into fully realized catastrophe.

Themes and Artistic Context

Brothers Of Metal work comfortably at the intersection of folklore and arena-scaled power metal. Chain Breaker exemplifies the group’s method: locate a resonant myth, condense it into a singable refrain, and wrap it in a sound that feels both martial and melodic. The track speaks to questions of sovereignty and destiny that run throughout Emblas Saga. The gods’ attempt to restrain the inevitable becomes a metaphor for the limits of authority, while Fenrir’s liberation is portrayed less as villainy than as the turning of a cosmic wheel.

Musically, the band remains faithful to European power metal’s core strengths, yet they emphasize communal vocals and narrative clarity over virtuoso showmanship. That choice, paired with a visual language grounded in physical craft, gives Chain Breaker an immediacy that reaches beyond myth enthusiasts to anyone drawn to big, declarative choruses and tightly marshaled rhythm.

Key Credits

• Album: Emblas Saga
• Label: AFM Records

Video Production

• Directors: Jonas Helmersson, Sara Gustavsson
• Director of Photography: Alexander Gustavsson
• Color Grading and Additional Photography: Jonas Helmersson

Cast

• Willow: David Fehrm
• Odin: Täpp Lars Arnesson
• Fenrir: Karo
• Brokk: Henke Blom
• Sindre: Mikael Fehrm

Music Credits

• Lyricists & Composers: Dawid Grahn, Johan Johannson, Mats Nilsson, Ylva Eriksson
• Producer: Erik Berglund
• Publisher: Soulfood Music Distribution GmbH

Acknowledgments

• Karl Nord
• Henke Blom
• Daniel Brandt
• Alicia Löffler
• Öje IF
• Bertil & Annemarie Helmersson
• David Fehrm
• Malungs Folkhögskola
• Wilhelmsson Trä & Metallbearbetning

Final Thoughts

Chain Breaker captures Brothers Of Metal at their most distilled, uniting a storming chorus with a mythic arc that suits their strengths. As a single and as a piece of visual storytelling, it delivers the band’s defining qualities: martial rhythms, layered vocals, and a reverence for saga that never loses sight of the hook. It is a modern power metal hymn to inevitability, forged in the glow of an anvil fire and carried by voices built to shake the hall.

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