Ihsahn strikes out on his own after the demise of his old band, Emperor. This is less extreme than that band but it's still got plenty of welly. Not much could be described as black metal but a couple of songs sound like less carnivorous, chaotically spiralling material from Emperor's last album "Prometheus".
Like "Prometheus", many of the best songs have weird convoluted riffs and harsh vocals before erupting into magestic cleanly-sung choruses or mid-sections, e.g. "Called by the Fire", "Panem et Circensis" and, most spectacularly "Will You Love Me Now?". Despite its title, this song is a towering epic of hatred and disgust. The highlight is the call and response section between the clean and harsh vocals, the clean asking "Will you love me now?" And the harsh spitting venom at the society who will never accept the free-thinker... That's the dominant lyrical theme of this album, disdain for society, using Satan (The Adversary) as a metaphor for those who do their own thing and don't accept the bullshit foisted upon them by the majority. Errr, well that's what it sounds like to me anyway!
The final track "The Pain is Still Mine" deserves a mention too, it's a complex multi-part epic weighing in at over 10 minutes. It mixes brain-busting riffs with a truly bizarre section that sounds like it should be in a musical and Ihsahn going overboard with his synth orchestra.
I came back to this five years after I bought it and I like it a lot more than I did when it came out. Definitely recommended to fans of Emperor, just don't expect it to sound exactly like Emperor!
Originally posted on http://basstunedtodead.wordpress.com