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Enslaved is one of the veterans of the
Norwegian black metal scene who are still around to this day. Their last album
"Monumension" saw the band moving away slightly from their former more
traditional sound and taking on a somewhat experimental and progressive
approach. "Below The Lights", their seventh full-length album, takes off
where "Monumension" left and it seems clear to me that Enslaved wants to be
something more than what they were before. They have already done the
straight-forward black metal thing and now they want to renew themselves but
they haven't forgotten about their musical roots. This album is therefore
still firmly rooted in black metal but there is so much more to it. There are
plenty of tempo changes and Enslaved does apparently not share the belief that
black metal has to played as fast as possible in order to sound good. There is
also quite a lot of keyboard sampling but they do not use the keyboards as a
symphonic background the way most bands tend to do. Instead there are weird
sounds accompanied by equally weird distorted clean vocals that make up a
spaced out and almost psychedelic atmosphere. The rest of the vocals shift
from the usual black metal screams to more death metal sounding growls.
Enslaved anno 2003 is definitely not a band for everyone, they are not
easy-listened but they are innovative and not afraid of the unknown. There are
even some jazz in the beginning of "Queen Of The Night" and on "Havenless"
Enslaved return to their viking metal roots for a while. Stand-out tracks:
"Havenless".
| Tracklist |
1. As Fire Swept Clean The |
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Earth 2. The Dead Stare 3. The Crossing 4. Queen Of |
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Night 5. Havenless 6. Ridicule Swarm 7. A Darker Place |
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: 46.21
| Buy other Enslaved albums |
