At this point some thirty years into their illustrious career, Enslaved have truly transcended into their own musical entity. Creating a genre in their own image with a highly unique sound that still stays true to their extreme metal roots, but also blends the darkness with the light of progressive rock, and providing two distinct and opposing vocal styles in a way that no other band does.
When it comes to talking about the truly great modern day progressive rock bands, both in terms of excellence and in genuine evolutionary steps, Enslaved are arguably one of the most overlooked. Even during their root years in the early 90’s, within the hotbed of ideas and directions that was the second wave of black metal, Enslaved began to stand out from many of their peers, in part due to their, at the time, unusual song structures and their more overt Viking influences. Cut to present day and recent albums such as RIITIR and In Times (Nuclear Blast) showed much greater prog influences, whilst retaining much of their extreme metal heritage (take the blistering ‘Thurisaz Dreaming’ off of the latter, which is arguably the most ‘typical’ black metal song in their canon for many years). Continue reading