IT IS NOT ABOUT AVOIDING FEAR OF THE PITCH-BLACK DARKNESS, BUT TO GO INTO THE DARKNESS ITSELF.
Enter “Utgard”. Enter a record brimful with northern magic. Let all those other bands sing about Thor’s mighty hammer and poor Odin hanging from that tree in miserable weather conditions. ENSLAVED are looking behind the mirror, tracing the origins of the well-known fables of the northern world back into each and every one of us.
The unusually rollicking rock’n’roll touch of ‘Urjotun’ or the archaic voice from the deep that is ‘Utgardr’, the raging force of ‘Flight Of Thought And Memory’ or the elegiac final curtain ‘Distant Seasons’ show ENSLAVED more open, more focused and simply more brilliant than ever.
CD:
01. Fires In The Dark
02. Jettegryta
03. Sequence
04. Homebound
05. Utgarðr
06. Urjotun
07. Flight Of Thought And Memory
08. Storms Of Utgard
09. Distant Seasons
LINE-UP:
Ivar Bjørnson | guitars
Grutle Kjellson | vocals
Arve “Ice Dale” Isdal | guitar
Håkon Vinje | Keyboards, Clean Vocals
Iver Sandøy | Drums