Enslaved herald a new dawn

Heimdal

NUCLEAR BLAST

Bergen’s blackened prog voyagers seek out the unknown

HEIMDAL STARTS WITH the splash of water, the creak of rigging and the repeated call of a mighty horn, sounded by Wardruna’s Eilif Gundersen. It feels like the beginning of an epic voyage into the unknown, which is apt because that’s exactly what Enslaved specialise in. The Bergen five-piece are far from the only band to have piloted black metal into stranger tides since its misbegotten beginnings, but they are one of the most consistently inventive and engrossing.

Enslaved are now an incredible 16 albums in, and they still haven’t run out of ideas. Thematically, this new album reaches back to a figure that featured on one of the very first Enslaved songs: Heimdallr from 1994 debut album Vikingligr Veldi. Although there’s been a lot of musical progression since then, there are still flashes of the feral aggression of yore. Multifaceted opener Behind The Mirror prominently places Grutle Kjellson’s rasping snarls in amongst subtly shifting guitars and otherworldly synths, while Congelia keeps its hypnotically drilling assault going for the majority of its eight-minute span. Heimdal is not the most expansive or experimental album the band have produced. In places it’s relatively straightforward, but it wouldn’t be an Enslaved album – in the 21st century at least – without a large knotwork of twists and turns.