As the old saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well, thirteen records into a career filled obsessively with Vikings and Norse mythology, and the only result Amon Amarth expects to change is the number of listeners. Judging from their continuing rise in popularity, that’s pretty far from insanity.
Viking Metal started out by combining the epic energy of Black Metal with the mystical grace of Folk music. Enslaved is a band at the pinnacle of this heavy, Nordic sound. Starting out as teenagers, this Norweigian act has successively enhanced the Scandinavian metal scene for nearly thirty years. Their beginnings were more in the realm of the extreme, but over time Enslaved has not been afraid to dip into other genres like Prog Rock and Jazz. It’s encouraging to witness their ability to be undaunted by their explorations while still being true to their Viking roots. Their new fifteenth full-length album, Utgard (Nuclear Blast) verifies their astute ambition of experimentmentation and expression.
Metal has always truly embraced the adventurous into its ranks; from its captivating and well versed origins where it proved like nothing else of its time to the hundreds of varying offshoots it presents to this very day, it is abundantly clear that metal is as much a way of life and thinking as it is simply a style of music. Continue reading