Metal Reviews

Progressive and competency to an unusually high degree unidentifiable in the vast majority of the community of musicians of a darker stripe.

It has been long since I've listened to this thoroughly. Great extremity and even greater impressions, imprinted upon the listener, some twenty years later.

A work which I have not visited perhaps in the last 5-6 years meaning that it is almost entirely unheard, in recent memory.

The least of Death recordings which I have heard and return to on this occasion, but it is now long recognized, as a seminal work in classic Technical-DM.

Depths of layer, interweaved with the utmost care and attention to minuit nuances, retaining a heaviness, which Enslaved have maintained, throughout their lifespan, as a band, and lyrical-themes, which have remained philosophical, and moreover, an atmosphere which seldom, any band other than Enslaved were capable of generating, although by circumstance and a change of artistic vision, they moved away from, as they aged, never cultivating it, beyond a number of limited albums, and a cover art that speaks volumes of esotericism, creating an overall, saga-like feel to the album, as a whole.

It was Ihsahn's ever-shifting creative nature that made him into a true heir, to the great ingenuities of past times, say, of the golden-age of progressive rock of the 70's, or rather, why go so back in time, when Anthems were only about 28 years, or so now behind his creative years, retrospectively and generally speaking? With this album and the one before it, he was traversing on an entirely new ground for the avant-garde and the new-progressive. Ihsahn created some oddities, with his sole name, on the cover, of which they were quite a few, but seldom, if ever, did he compromise his musical abilities, and his artistic integrity, in trade for something, of a lesser kind.

The gnawing tugs and pulls remained constant and remorseless.

Pounding your ears and infiltrating your senses.

Self-explanatory.

Seldom played but its time had arrived.

Trance-like expressionism.

Admittedly, I have only listened to early Death a handful of times and very unevenly and far in between. It is understandable how the most traditionalist DM fans would come to dislike later Death, but it is a bare evident truth that latter day Death greatly improved on all aspects of what they were making.

I always preferred later Death to the old stuff too.