For those familiar with 2010’s Blackjazz, the tracks on One One One are a distillation, perhaps simplification, of Fisheye and The Madness and the Damage Done. Comparable styles between those tracks and this album implies that the wandering jam, ultimately the jazzy moments, of Blackjazz aren’t a presence here. Instead, the band has shifted towards incorporating a more streamlined industrial metal of the pop variety into the tracks. That sounds like an awful thing honestly. The band cites a heavy influence on this album from acts like Ministry, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails amongst more canonical acts like Death and Emperor. This album, though, is much more than simply a rehashing of those acts. The more straightforward pop elements of that era and style are combined with the complicated layering that Shining is able to accomplish, resulting in awesome rockin’ jams with the saxophone being utilized for solos and a general layering amongst other sounds.

This was my first encounter with the Norwegian Shining, having passed up Blackjazz in my faithfulness to the Swedish act of the same moniker and a hasty over-generalization of the use of a sax as a gimmick. Oh, how wrong I was. If the saxophone could rightfully be called a gimmick, it would probably be on this album moreso than on Blackjazz. On One One One, the band’s desire to write singles, hit songs that pack a punch and could be sold disentangled from the album as a whole, reduced the saxophone to an element of the overall sound, rather than the integral element that it was on Blackjazz. However, the sheer anguish belted out of the saxophone, like on the spectacular solos of The One Inside and How Your Story Ends, exhibits how the sax provides a unique sound unlike the run of the mill noise on metal albums. The band simply pulls it off in every way on this album. The use of the sax in their take on industrial metal is awesome, adding something to their impeccable song-writing that makes them stand out from the acts that they might be compared to.

Described as the third installment of their Blackjazz trilogy, One One One is their most straight-forward album, designed to be a set of jazz metal hits. The tracks sound most reminiscent of Rob Zombie’s Superbeast off of his solo debut. I’m not kidding. Some variety, but if there was an instant comparison to any sound, I would pinpoint it to that. But it’s so much better than that track or Manson or any of that ilk ever were. Munkeby’s vocals often sound strained and the rasps are instantly decipherable, but it gives the album a rather anthemic quality. The layers of hooks make the songs instantly catchy, and with the vocals, each track is simply fun to sing along with. Blackjazz Rebels is a Shining theme song of sorts; being kicked off with a count to eight and a chorus that we’re meant to gang-chant along with it is a romper. The album as a whole seems geared towards having a blast in a live setting. The stomping kick drum that precedes the chorus is an instant hook, giving it a pause from the breakneck pace of the track whilst drawing your ear to the drumming of the track, which is fucking immaculate. Drummer Torstein Lofthus rides the straightforward vibe of the tracks hitting all the fills, but in certain tracks like Rebels he lets loose in a way that puts him in league with greats that exudes a jazz style of dancing across the toms and snares without ever seeming to slam ‘em, except for when necessary.

In the end, it is as if Norwegian metal is trying to re-brand itself as something different than the brushstrokes that it was painted with in the early ‘90s via the saxophone. With Ihsahn’s latest output utilizing the saxophone with great success and the Norwegian government-owned oil company being a patron to Shining’s work with a one million Kroner grant, Norwegians are doing more for the saxophone in metal than Zorn was able to. This album is outstanding, until they can follow it up, I will just have to dig into their back catalog with bated breath. One One One is currently for sale in digital, but the physical copies don’t seem to be being released until the end of May.