 The characteristics of Bathory 's Viking metal music featured Wagnerian " lengthy epics , ostentatious arrangements , chorused vocals , and ambient keyboards " . Mulvany notes that the 90s releases by Bathory marked the beginnings of a Viking @-@ themed trend initially slow , even confusing , in formation . For example , in 1994 , the Austrian black metal band <unk> , on its album <unk> , incorporated themes of Vikings and Germanic paganism , but stated about the first track on the album that " this vision should not be seen as a part of the upcoming Viking trend . " According to Mulvany , " The Viking trend presaged by <unk> was actually taking place around them , and it remains more ' true ' to how black metal is often defined than the folk influenced metal that followed . Its folk elements are predominantly textual or musically evocative rather than musically @-@ historically accurate . " 
