Enthroned - Obsidium (2012)

There are always certain preconceptions one forms for a band like Enthroned who are more or less an institution in the black metal scene due to their level of perseverance and survivability. When I hear a new album from the Belgians, I know the following: It's going to be damn well produced. The cover art will prove interesting and memorable. The songwriting will involve top of the line musicianship for its form. The aural aesthetics of the album will be at best somber, but more likely menacing, atmospheric and utterly dark. The lyrics will be thoughtful and threatening. And for the past 15 or so years and seven full-lengths beyond the debut Prophecies of Pagan Fire, I would have added that it's probably not going to be an album I really care for or remember long past the initial exposure. Hell, even the debut itself could not be counted as a personal favorite, but it does evoke some nostalgia being one of the first such records from Belgium that i owned.

I say all this because their 9th long player, Obisidum is the most immersive and interesting album they've written in a very long time. Ever, perhaps. The context is much the same as its predecessor Pentagrammaton: dark and obscure occult philosophies propelled by tense, traditional black metal fundamentals. The band's blasting is on par with nearly everything else out of Europe, and the rasp of frontman Nornagest easily comparable to other long term tyrants of Europe like Marduk, Dark Funeral and Satyricon. Taut, rampaging tremolo rhythms are interspersed with moodier, dissonant sluggish sequences that transform a tune like "Sepulchred Within Opaque Slumber" or "Oblivious Shades" into a haunting vortex of oblique misery. But what I most loved about the album is the strong use of chanting, sparse synthesizers and other crucial catalysts of atmosphere that help to break up some of the more predictable patterns on the album; or the tendency towards massive, spring-loaded grooves as in "Horns Aflame" which evolve it from a 'pretty good' black metal record into a potential juggernaut.

Enthroned don't dowse us in pretty spikes of accessible melody, but dissonant flumes of convulsive chaos that wrench at the very tether of our souls. Where these rushed rapids of hostility are conjoined with the dour, concentric chants as in the bridge of "Petraolevm Salvia" before its ear splitting, frenetic lead guitar, Obsidium takes on an immense depth that I simply cannot contribute to a lot of their average alumni like Carnage in Worlds Beyond or Towards the Skullthrone of Satan. There's an increased willingness to expand their central sound, to try new things without tipping the scales, and it really pays off. Each time I would listen through this beast, I got the feeling I had just journeyed through some dark tunnel of apparitions, lucky to emerge from the other end. The individual guitar riffs might not possess the greatest level of memorable compulsion, but wrought in such furious explosions as these they become very hard to resist indeed, and they've certainly piqued my attention far more than they have in memory. Well fucking done.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

http://www.enthroned.be/

Enthroned - Pentagrammaton (2010)

Enthroned have got to be one of the most and least interesting black metal bands in the universe, simultaneously, and this cannot be the simplest of tasks to accomplish. Their debut Prophecies of Pagan Fire was a strong if traditional effort, but since that point, the band seem to have developed on a split hair: on one hand, their lyrics, concepts, titles and artistic visions have all come along way, through would be efforts like Armoured Bestial Hell, XES Haereticum and Tetra Karcist. On the other hand, they're still playing rather run of the mill black metal fare, out of which nothing staggeringly important ever seems to manifest, despite an intense effort on the part of their limbs and vile spirits.

Pentagrammaton is their 8th full-length, and it is choked with so much of what it should take to succeed in this realm, and yet it flounders in its ability to deliver memorable content. The contributions here from the newer members are powerful, with storm-like, taut drumming skills and driving guitars, all complementing the centrifugal force of Nornagest, whose black howling is as voracious as ever since taking over this duty. The selection of tracks are dynamic and potent, but they almost unanimously fail to engage the memory beyond just blowing the listener's mind out the back of his/her head. They rarely outlast their welcome, as we can sense in the strange, thrash driven atmosphere of "Magnvs Princeps Leopardi" or the battering "Rion Riorrim", or the charging slaughter of "Nehas't", with only one bloated epic to be had in the nearly 9 minutes of "Unconscious Minds" which ironically supplies some of the strongest moments on the album.

Enthroned manage all the intensity of the top flight Norse and Swedish bands. They can run gun to gun against a 1349 or Marduk with ease, and there is no question Pentagrammaton presents some dire atmosphere ("I Missi Solemnibvs", "Ornament of Grace") and punishing exercise ("The Vitalized Shell"). But for all the ritual knives it runs across your throat, for all the artillery it launches at your weakened mortal shell, so few of the riffs deliver anything worth sticking to, any final nail in your coffin, and the result is another of those ceaseless efforts that you wish you could wrap yourself around. Certainly, Enthroned remain one of their country's chief exports in this field: their technical ability, thoughtful occult concepts and ghastly, dark production standards would be hard for anyone to match. If only their black breath of fire could do more than scorch my awareness, but reduce me to cinders.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (an evocation in filled ecstasy)

http://www.enthroned.be/