Having found the Norwegian avant-gardists ENSLAVED relatively late, around the early 2010s, I guess it has given me a certain advantage in tracing the evolution of their unique sound back to their earlier albums. I mean, I’m not burdened with any pre-conceptions about how strictly those albums should have adhered to the unholy tenets of the genre at the time, unlike those black-metal aficionados who had followed the band from the very beginning. One particularly intriguing album seems to have been their 2006 endeavor “Ruun,” released on May 2nd, 2006, via Tabu Recordings. At the time of its release, the prominent flirting with progressive elements was not unanimously celebrated in the black-metal community, but on the other hand, it did not incite too many shit-storms either. I guess the band had already established themselves as something of a progressive black-metal band. The previous album, “Isa” (2004), had introduced a new keyboardist, Herbrand Larsen, whose electronic soundscapes brushed the album with a distinctly cinematic flair, and this album pretty much picks up where “Isa” left off. Some fans have gone so far as to dub “Ruun” a superior take on the album that came before it. So, if “Isa” was the point in the band’s career where their modern, more progressive, and trailblazing sound was born, “Ruun” turned out to be the album to consolidate this novel concept.
“Entroper” sets things in motion with tight, uptempo riffs that do not resonate too much with the air of black metal, but rather with that of thrash or even heavy metal. Grutle Kjellson‘s trademark snarls in the vocal department set the record straight, as if to remind us what’s what, although Larsen‘s clean vocals further dissolve the black-metal aura toward the end of the song. I’m not sure how his clean vocals were received back in the day; as far as I know black-metal puritans aren’t too big on such things, but for me, this was a welcome touch of familiarity, having been converted to the parish of the band’s fanboys by their later albums on which the interplay between Kjellson‘s harsh and Larsen‘s clean vocals is one of the band’s strongest fortes.
The progressive plot thickens on the next few tracks. First, “Path to Vanir” slows things down a bit with riffs that are pure old-school heavy metal. Without Kjellson‘s trademark snarls, you could mistake the song as having been recorded in Birmingham, circa 1987. The atmospheric section, however, throws the song off on a zany prog tangent. I’m pretty sure the most tradition-savvy, vintage heavy-metal bands wouldn’t have opted for such a thing 40 years ago. Next, “Fusion of Sense and Earth” picks up momentum with a tad more uptempo riffs that bounce to and fro between old-school black metal and something of a more avant-garde nature.
Halfway into the album, the title track hits the prog pedal to the floor, resonating by turns with the air of latter-day MASTODON‘s sludgey, clean-sung antics and atmospheric black metal. For a prog nerd like me, “Ruun” is obviously one of the highlights of the album. The subtle Middle-Eastern vibes of the main riffs, chugging away in a septuple meter, are a very nice bonus. This song could have been slipped on the tracklist of “Utgard” (2020), and a newbie fan wouldn’t have noticed a thing. The same thing could be said about “Tides of Chaos” as well. The opening riff triggers haunting flashbacks of MASTODON‘s “Crack the Skye,” before the song takes on a bit more black-metal-tinted footing.
In retrospect, it is easy to see how the foundation of ENSLAVED‘s modern sound was laid with “Ruun” and its predecessor album. The mournful, atmospheric psychedelia of “Essence,” for instance, was a precursor of many a banger to come on those later albums. I found ENSLAVED‘s magnificent music around “Riitiir” when the band had already incorporated progressive elements rather prominently into their songcraft, but I’m pretty sure I would have loved the band just as much had I found them around this album instead. It would have taken just one song from this album – the haunting closer.
While the penultimate track, “Api-Vat,” is a damn fine riffer in and of itself, the closer is the ultimate cherry on top. There are various schools of thought when it comes to the placement of the best album track in the tracklist. Some like to serve it right off the bat, and then there was a time, in the vinyl era, when the best album track was typically the third one on side A, and finally, some like to put it last. On this album, ENSLAVED opted for the last option. “Heir to the Cosmic Seed” is a haunting grand finale to this beautiful journey. There isn’t much of black metal in this track to mention – it’s almost like a homage to the “Seventh Son of A Seventh Son” era IRON MAIDEN, but with the atmospheric factor turned up a good notch, with the vocals all clean and hazy this time. Yeah, had I come across this song 20 years ago, my ENSLAVED fandom would have kicked off some 6 years earlier.
The best description I’ve read about this album was something like this: “All artists have a bad day once in a while, so it says a lot that a bad day for Norway’s ENSLAVED is still superior to the vast array of music being released worldwide.” So, even if the album’s progressive leanings rubbed some black-metal fans the wrong way at the time, they still found something rather spectacular in it. The black-metal flourishes might not sit particularly well with the older prog-rock demographic, which I should be a proud member of, given my age, but I just fucking love this album. Yeah, sure, the band’s contemporary avant-garde black-metal sound is only budding on this endeavor, but it’s budding rather nicely.
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- Entroper
- Path to Vanir
- Fusion of Sense and Earth
- Ruun
- Tides of Chaos
- Essence
- Api-Vat
- Heir to the Cosmic Seed
Lineup
Grutle Kjellson – bass, vocals
Ivar Bjørnson – guitars, effects
Ice Dale – lead guitars
Cato Bekkevold – drums, percussion
Herbrand Larsen – keyboards, vocals (clean)
Label
Tabu Recordings
