Enslaved
Blodhemn
[Osmose]
I was one of the few people who actually found much depth and metal in Enslaved's previous album, "Eld". The level of immersion in Viking culture, thoughts and mysticism is something I have heard before only in Bathory's "Hammerheart".
Song writing and musicianship on "Blodhemn" remind me more of "Frost" than "Eld"... it's very straight-forward, almost like Marduk, with apparent simplicity and constant blast speed. Peter Tagtgren's production strengthens this impression. The war-like and brutal old Enslaved riffs are still their, but complexity has been abandoned for the sake of injecting speed and an "entertaining" quality which disappoints me and detracts from many elements here. This is not a classic.
Grutle's vocals are a well-arranged duet between the Harsh Norwegian Screams and the melodic vocals, which are more constantly present here, than they were on "Eld".
What helps to bring this material beyond Marduk and co., is the awareness of old heavy metal, a dedication you can hear in songs like "Urtical Gods". It starts with a Slayer-ish high scream and pounds along like old thrash without being retro. What I am trying to express here, is that when Enslaved go regressive, they do it with quality because they are still living that era of bullet belts and spikes, the brutal fuckin' 80's!
I can see well why they chose Abyss Studio for this album, it's an obvious decision. I prefer their old Grieghallen sound infinitely to this, though. The production on "Blodhemn" has an annoyingly sharp, noisy quality that suits Marduk but not Enslaved... it doesn't do justice to Enslaved's depth (they might have taken this approach because their new material for this album was lacking in this depth).
It's refreshing, though, that they chose to create something straight-forward, honest and pure-feeling instead of going sophisticated with age. The feel here is close to what Immortal's "At the Heart of Winter" achieved. In both of these releases the musicians more or less admit getting old, but they have enough sense to transcend reacting to it socially/commercially and instead play metal as brutal as they still can.
© 2000 black hate
Song writing and musicianship on "Blodhemn" remind me more of "Frost" than "Eld"... it's very straight-forward, almost like Marduk, with apparent simplicity and constant blast speed. Peter Tagtgren's production strengthens this impression. The war-like and brutal old Enslaved riffs are still their, but complexity has been abandoned for the sake of injecting speed and an "entertaining" quality which disappoints me and detracts from many elements here. This is not a classic.
Grutle's vocals are a well-arranged duet between the Harsh Norwegian Screams and the melodic vocals, which are more constantly present here, than they were on "Eld".
What helps to bring this material beyond Marduk and co., is the awareness of old heavy metal, a dedication you can hear in songs like "Urtical Gods". It starts with a Slayer-ish high scream and pounds along like old thrash without being retro. What I am trying to express here, is that when Enslaved go regressive, they do it with quality because they are still living that era of bullet belts and spikes, the brutal fuckin' 80's!
I can see well why they chose Abyss Studio for this album, it's an obvious decision. I prefer their old Grieghallen sound infinitely to this, though. The production on "Blodhemn" has an annoyingly sharp, noisy quality that suits Marduk but not Enslaved... it doesn't do justice to Enslaved's depth (they might have taken this approach because their new material for this album was lacking in this depth).
It's refreshing, though, that they chose to create something straight-forward, honest and pure-feeling instead of going sophisticated with age. The feel here is close to what Immortal's "At the Heart of Winter" achieved. In both of these releases the musicians more or less admit getting old, but they have enough sense to transcend reacting to it socially/commercially and instead play metal as brutal as they still can.
© 2000 black hate