Here’s the latest from Roadburn‘s site:

Ulver‘s music career is a sonic kaleidoscopic epic that saw them start as a lo-fi black metal band, and then begin a continuous morphing through acoustic outsider folk, electronic ambient music, post-symphonic chamber music and electronic post-rock to their current sound which might be called goth, prog, electronic, experimental, art rock.

They are without question one of the most varied, unique and talented bands active today and Roadburn‘s colossally chuffed to welcome them to the 1967 edition of Roadburn, headlining on Thursday, April 12 at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland.

Ulver‘s latest record, War of the Roses, adds multi-instrumentalist Daniel O’Sullivan (Guapo, Æthenor, etc.) to the lineup and they are now a seamless amalgamation of the enormous spectrum of sounds that they have prospected during the last decade. It promises to be a wild musical ride at their 1967-performance, we can hardly wait!

EDIT: Justin K. Broadrick has also been announced as artist-in-residence for Roadburn 2012. He’ll do three sets over the course of three days. Leaf Hound will also perform the entirety of their 1971 classic, Growers of Mushroom. Dig the poster to prove it:

Tickets for Roadburn 2012 will go on sale Saturday, November 26, 10:00 Central European Time. There will be a 2 ticket limit (per order) for 3-day and 4-day passes and Afterburner tickets. The new 13% tax increase on concert tickets here in the Netherlands is included.

3-day passes will cost € 177,50 (1000 available), 4-day passes, including Afterburner will cost € 197,50 (1500 available) and single tickets for the traditional Afterburner event (headliner technical thrash metal legends Coroner) will cost € 32,50 (500 available). There will be additional service fees per ticket. More info on tickets for Roadburn Festival 2012 here.

In related news: Anekdoten, Bongripper, Dopethrone, Fleshpress, Gnod, Necros Christos, Necro Deathmort and Spiders have also been confirmed for Roadburn Festival 2012.

There’s varying levels of that inflection throughout Dust Devil, but these veterans of Roadburn, Stoned From the Underground and Duna Jam — they clearly have their Eurofest credentials in order — handle it with smoothness and ease, right from the sliding ’70s classicism of opener “Grim Reefer” to the Clutch-esque fuzz groove of “Ragnarörkr.” The only real challenge in picking a track to stream was trying to find one that summed everything up.

In the end, I went with “The Prophet.” At about five and a half-minutes, you get the bluesy side of the band through guitarist Thomas Brenna‘s vocals and the heavy rock of the rhythm section of bassist Stian Helle and drummer Espen Nesset. Rounded out by Lukas Paulsen on guitar and backing vocals, Lonely Kamel impress right up to the song’s surprisingly noisy finale. Even there, though, the groove is paramount.

Lonely Kamel‘s Dust Devil is due out Oct. 28. Here’s “The Prophet,” followed by some bio info courtesy of Napalm Records‘ site:

Blues, grooves, and a bottle of booze! Stoner rock! Lonely Kamel‘s third album proves once again that it is absolutely not necessary to be surrounded by desert sands and cacti in order to produce genuine stoner rock. The four Norwegians are living proof of this fact, and don’t stop there. With the release of Dust Devil, they unquestionably provide the genre with a refreshing brand of unrelenting and passionate dedication. The opening two tracks, “Grim Reefer” and “Evil Man,” reveal the road on which Lonely Kamel will travel.

It offers much more than typical stoner riffs and captivating rhythms, adding sing-along choruses and hypnotic melodies to its winding course. Short trips to the world of blues and psychedelic round off this unforgettable journey by ensuring a welcomed change of pace. Dust Devil is the Nordic alternative to the desert sands, and for fans of the stoner rock genre a definite must-have!

But though they obviously dwell in a secret forest of krautrock LPs and obscure folkadelia (they have secret forests in Oslo, right?), Spirits of the Dead aren’t limited to retro posturing either. The ringing clarity of the acoustics that begin The Great God Pan opener “Mighty Mountain” and the ensuing distorted guitar revving both sound entirely modern. Guitarist Ole Øvstedal shows restraint throughout the album, and “Mighty Mountain” is just the first instance of it, as the electric guitar again cuts out to acoustic sway, coming back only for a simple start-stop progression in the chorus. Frontman Ragnar Vikse leads the drama of the verses, and proves to be more than capable of taking charge of a song in the classic tradition of the standalone singer. Even with Øvstedal playing a multi-layered lead under, it’s his repetition of the titular chorus line – he’s almost chanting it by then; far back in the mix and echoing – that has the listener enraptured. Drummer Geir Thorstensen keeps to rim shots and jazzy hi-hat/ride interplay for most of “Leaves of Last Year’s Fall,” which is among the more woodland psych of The Great God Pan’s tracks in terms of its atmosphere. Vikse’s voice is deft and almost molten in its ability to jump from note to note, and with the subtle fills of bassist Kristian Hultgren playing out under Øvstedal’s gorgeous leads, there’s a touch of class brought into the song that’s complemented – not undercut – by the somewhat foreboding progression of the bridge. Spirits of the Dead affect a decent build and chaotic payoff, but never meander too far from the straightforward structures on which their material is built.

It’s with “Pure as the Lotus” that The Great God Pan gets its first real injection of ritual. The cut – second in length only to the closer at 6:22 – begins with hard thuds from Thostensen topped with a fuzzy riff from Øvstedal and incantation ah’ing from Vikse, and it’s a clear change in atmosphere from first two songs, the underlying darker vibe of “Leaves of Last Year’s Fall” coming to the fore for the introduction. The single hits of percussion remain a focus and the melody is rounded out by sustained organ in the verse, and the chorus opens more widely into forest worshiping grace. There’s a development to the track that the insistence of Thorstensen and Hultgren’s rhythm helps highlight, but Vikse’s melody seems to be in a world of its own, which helps set up a duality that joins back together as the intro is revived in the song’s back half, leading to a hypnotic, guitar-led instrumental break that eventually fades out on the chorus. Like a lot of The Great God Pan, “Pure as the Lotus” is built around melodic quirk and a heavy dose of personality, but there’s a solid structural foundation underneath. That remains true for the softly-cooed exclamatory title-track, “The Great God Pan!”

After the richness that closed side A, the level of ceremony given to the start of The Great God Pan’s second half is relatively minute, but what the song “The Great God Pan!” does is revive the thoughtful, folkish feel of the album’s beginning, essentially setting up the same movement Spirits of the Dead had in their first three tracks to play out once more on the second. And that would seem to be the case, but no question the band takes a different methodology to the overall structure, throwing a well-placed curveball in the form of the organ-fronted “Casting the Runes,” on which Vikse’s vocals are limited to a kind of deeply-mixed grumbling that echoes in and out as Øvstedal’s guitar plays back and forth from acoustic to electric and Hultgren and Thorstensen have their biggest challenge yet in providing rhythmic ground. To their credit, they do just that, and though a lot of The Great God Pan could be called weird, at least by someone unfamiliar with retro forest and/or freak folk, “Casting the Runes” is the first time the strangeness is really highlighted. What keeps the song consistent with the rest of the album is the almost-subconscious darkness of it. It proves to veer from the straightforward at just the right moment, setting up the expansive “Goldberry” to finish The Great God Pan with some of its most memorable melodies and a fitting musical summation.

The album isn’t catchy as such, but there are parts of it that stay with you after listening, and “Goldberry” accomplishes that in a way that balances the folk and psychedelic rock aspects of the album well. There’s (what sounds like) mellotron under Øvstedal’s guitar, and the whole analog feel of The Great God Pan gets affirmed in the aforementioned layered leads and the naturalistic “Set me free” pleading from Vikse. It’s Thorstensen’s most active presentation on drums – he shows his rock roots – and Hultgren’s runs on bass after the six-minute mark offer some late warmth to offset the guitar. Spirits of the Dead aren’t the first to mine the occasionally bizarre side of ‘70s psychedelic folk (everyone from Dead Man to half the current roster of Thrill Jockey Records comes to mind), but they do it incredibly well and with a remarkable flair for balancing the modern and classic sides of their sound. There will be those reluctant to take the album on either out of some distaste for the retro style or the current hipness of this kind of folk influence, but The Great God Pan stands true with its combination of melody and progressive paganism. At its root, it’s an intriguing listen, and that’s what matters more than genre or critical hype.

Spirits of the Dead’s web portal

The End Records

That works to their benefit on these tracks, as each new reference that pops up is well blended into the context of an overall Kvelertak sound, and even in its darker moments, the upbeat energy of the record – perhaps its most infectious element – is maintained. With six members in the band, there’s room for a slew of backing vocals, gang chants and arrangement tweaks, and at times vocalist Erlend Hjelvik isn’t so much just screaming overtop of riffs has he is conducting a choir of shouts. As one would have to expect, solos abound. The guitars of Bjarte Lund Rolland, Maciek Ofstad and Vidar Landa trade off harmonies and leads, and there are songs that can be overwhelming for how much they have going on, but thanks to the work of Hjelvik, bassist Marvin Nygaard and drummer Kjetil Gjermundrød, the album is never completely out of control and an overarching flow is achieved. Despite the reckless sound of the band, the raucous nature of the material and the fact that opener “Ulvetid” starts out with a gang chant of the band’s name and closer “Utrydd Dei Svake” closes with one (at least lyric-wise), Kvelertak is neither dumb nor out of control. They know exactly what they’re doing here, and that counts among their several key assets.

At the most basic level, Kvelertak rocks. In almost every sense you can think of, the album is a collection of driving, uptempo tracks that – I’ll say it again because I don’t think it can be stressed enough – are so frantic they almost emit light. Captured in the studio by Kurt Ballou of Converge, the hardcore side of the band comes through in an aura of band solidarity. “Ulvetid” (which translates to “Hunting Time”) seamlessly melds punk and black metal in its layers of guitar, and Hjelvik is either to affect either style in his screams. Immediately, the record draws you in, and the Orange-hued opening riff of “Mjød” only drives that point further home. Despite being the shortest track on the album, “Mjød” is also one of the most memorable for its chorus, which, speaking no Norwegian, I still wanted to sing and clap along with. That track’s punk elements are to the front, but “Fossegrim,” which follows, starts off with a verse riff straight out of Norway’s blackened lineage. Where Kvelertak get into putting their stamp on it is just after 1:20, when the song breaks to just the guitar (sounds more like keyboard), taking the progression someplace completely differently before a solo/breakdown section and squibblies keep the guitars busy as Gjermundrød – to his credit – not only manages to keep up with the deluge of changes, but actually establishes a groove in each part and keeps the song moving.  One could hardly blame him if his head had exploded two minutes into the track.

“Blodtørst” is memorable for bringing in an acoustic-led break (punctuated by steady bass drum kicks) in its midsection, refusing even then to let go of the momentum the band has established. Everything on Kvelertak happens fast, and that’s part of what makes the record so exciting. It’s telling you to keep up with it if you can, and I think that part of the reason the band has had such success around the world is their being able to stay heavy in the traditional sense – fast, loud, dense tonality – while also working the punk accessibility into their sound. It’s a winning formula across this album, and I’d be surprised if others didn’t pick it up as a tactic in the future, the same way Torche’s brand of melodicism seems to have become universal these days among newer-school doomers. Kvelertak – with their John Dyer Baizley (Baroness) cover art, Kurt Ballou production and, now, specific American release – definitely have their sights on an international market, and going by the reaction Kvelertak has received, rightly so. As the riffy break in “Offernatt” – a place where Nygaard most makes his presence known on bass – fades into the classic rock opening of “Sjøhyenar (Havets Herrer),” it’s increasingly clear Kvelertak have something special going on sound-wise. Call and response vocal interplay on “Sjøhyenar (Havets Herrer)” results in one of the album’s most definitively punk moments, but again it isn’t long before the band changes it up with more acoustic guitars and a straight-ahead rocking chorus.

The song then goes full-blastbeat black metal shortly before the three-minute mark, and though the transition is clumsy, the appeal is still there. Kvelertak, who formed in 2007, are still a relatively young band, and the album sounds it. That too is a part of what makes it work; the excitement of where they might go from here. The only English-named song on Kvelertak, “Sultans of Satan” follows “Sjøhyenar (Havets Herrer)” with a catchy gang chorus à la “Mjød.” “Sultans of Satan” also features a stonerly nod in its midsection, where a nod-worthy riff is peppered by an Echoplex knob-twisting freakout – three guitarists, you can do that – before AC/DC riffs meet cowbell and the song opens to a lead and more chugging decadence. For the strength of its chorus, “Sultans of Satan” makes “Nekroskop” something of a comedown, but Kvelertak make it work anyway, playing up the black metal influence in the guitars while backing shouts lead to a surprising semi-melodic chorus, appealing in its own right. It’s a decent setup for the Enslaved nod that makes “Liktorn” a late-album standout.

Kvelertak is split by “Sultans of Satan,” and the latter half of the record, though shorter track-wise, features longer songs, in the five-minute range more than the three-to-four minutes cuts preceding. There isn’t a discernable change in approach, but “Liktorn,” at 5:35, does give the listener plenty to dig into, from the opening black metal section to the stonerly riffing that follows, to the Viking chants and back again across the gamut, being maybe the best example of the breadth, complexity and synergy Kvelertak are able to achieve on the record. “Ordsmedar av Rang” begins the closing duo with an ‘80s metal riff completemented by Hjelvik’s screams and cleaner backing vocals. It’s a less directly or superficially catchy song than some of the tracks on Kvelertak, but no less effective in showing the depth of arrangement that these songs contain, particularly in the guitars – acoustics, leads, riffs, noise – if I haven’t said it before, there’s an awful lot going on. As a finale, “Utrydd Dei Svake” doesn’t change that either. At 6:25, the song opens with single, muted hits, before launching into a Slayer riff – Gjermundrød on the ping ride – and upping the punk one last time before another catchy gang chorus or two, a killer break, the aforementioned band-name declaration, and an extending ending that sees Kvelertak meld classic rock and metal as well as anyone I’ve ever heard has managed to do so. Southern lead licks rest alongside punk pulsations, and it’s a fitting end to the album’s melee. More than fitting, actually. It fucking rules, not least of all because even after everything the band has done throughout the course of the 10 tracks prior, you still don’t see it coming. If I thought anyone read this far into reviews, I’d have put a spoiler warning three sentences ago.

Bonus tracks are a nice touch, and are bound to win over some of the American contingent who already shelled out for the import Indie Recordings version of the record into making another purchase, but there’s no question that the highlight of Kvelertak’s Kvelertak is the album itself. The band is young, and they sound young, but what they accomplish on these songs isn’t to be taken lightly, and though I’m not sure if I’m ready to sign on to the hype completely, I can at least understand where it’s coming from and offer no legitimate disagreement with it. Kvelertak is an exciting debut from a new outfit, and it has the potential to become remarkably influential on the course of modern heavy metal, underground and otherwise. Here’s hoping that the six-piece can keep hold of the vigor with which they execute the material here going forward, because if they can bring this kind of hunger to subsequent releases, they’ll be unstoppable.

Kvelertak on Facebook

The End Records

You could sit for a week and parse every second and still not manage to capture it. I remember the first time I listened, I was just so happy it didn’t follow a similar production course to that of 2008′s Vertebrae, but it wasn’t until I really dug into Axioma Ethica Odini that the scope of the thing became clear. The first half of the record is your pretty typical Enslaved material — still better than, oh, everything else in its genre — but Side B’s prog overload really pushed Axioma Ethica Odini into the upper echelon of 2010 releases for me. It’s another one of those albums I just can’t seem to leave home.

Even listening to it now to write this, I’m distracted by the fucking brilliance of the album (among other things). The chorus of “Lightening” gives me a chill up my spine every time, and even a song like “Singular,” which I didn’t fully appreciate when I reviewed the record, has grown on me to the point where I’ll put Axioma Ethica Odini away for a day or so, then stop and say to myself, “Why the hell am I not listening to Enslaved?” And you know what the answer is? The answer is I put on Enslaved. Constantly.

In a way, the first 10 seconds of opener “Aquanaut” tell the whole tale of The Big Slow. The thick, fuzz guitars of Sondre Mæland and Markus Lie Andersen lead the charge into the track, and they remain a leading focus for the EP’s 22:39 duration, bassist Ole Rokseth and drummer Martin Gerlyng having no trouble keeping up but never really taking the fore, even on the more rhythmically-centered second track, “Gunslinger.” The starts and stops would seem to be a rhythmic key, but I’d argue that song, which towards its close reminds more of the modern House of Broken Promises style of accessible riffage than the angry Dozer/Greenleaf vibes I got off the opener, is even more about the interplay between Mæland and Andersen, the throaty growls of the former adding an even more aggressive immediacy throughout.

To their credit, Buckaduzz change up both their approach and the vibe of The Big Slow on the closer, “King Crab.” At 12:54, the track is more than twice as long as either “Aquanaut” or “Gunslinger,” and longer than the two put together (math is fun). More than that, though, it’s the shifts in sound and the increased dynamics that stand out. Buckaduzz begin slower, moodier and quieter, with some more subdued vocals from Mæland and solid hi-hat hits from Andersen. Until about 5:40, “King Crab” isn’t such an outlandish pairing with either of the first two cuts — and it’s about a king crab, for which the correct word is “charm” — but then the song cuts out to a quiet moment of just guitar that acts as the very beginning of a brilliantly-executed gradual build that consumes the last seven minutes of The Big Slow. Along the way, Buckaduzz show off some psychedelia, some classic soloing, a little prog edge, and no shortage of groove.

Both “Aquanaut” and “Gunslinger” are solid rockers with catchy riffs and heavy crashes — nothing wrong with that — but it’s on “King Crab” that Buckaduzz really do the work of distinguishing themselves. They’re still not redefining the genre, which would be asking a lot of a band so young, but they give listeners a glimpse at their potential on “King Crab” that puts The Big Slow in a different category entirely. Before you know it, Mæland is back with vocals for the song’s closing movement, and you’re snapped out of the hypnosis and back to the rock. The skill and subtlety with which they handle the song is an achievement in itself, and should they continue along those lines they have the chance to develop into something genuinely unique among their riffy peers. Here’s hoping.

Buckaduzz on MySpace

Axioma Ethica Odini, rich in its sound, complex in its execution and boasting moments of unparalleled progressive extremity, is quickly becoming one of my favorite albums of this very diverse year. It is Enslaved‘s 11th and follows 2008′s Vertebrae, which I felt was held back by its production, and in particular by the mixing job of Joe Barresi (Tool‘s 10,000 Days, Queens of the Stone Age, Clutch, etc.). Though he was quick to correct my impression, Bjørnson noted as well the less than ideal sound of that album, and as Axioma Ethica Odini was recorded by the band themselves in the home and professional studios owned by the five members of Enslaved — Bjørnson, fellow founder bassist/vocalist Grutle Kjellson, lead guitarist Arve “Ice Dale” Isdal, keyboardist/vocalist Herbrand Larsen and drummer Cato Bekkevold — and mixed by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street in Sweden, one can imagine some change in approach was intended.

Whatever they did, it worked. On the cusp of their 20th year, Enslaved triumph with Axioma Ethica Odini in a way I don’t know if they ever have before. Sure, their oldest material is heralded as being centrally influential among the Viking and black metal sets, but from where I’m sitting (not there, basically), their even more important work began with the incorporation of prog elements on 2001′s Monumension and was built on for subsequent offerings, Below the Lights (2003), Isa (2004), Ruun (2006) and even the aforementioned Vertebrae, which given different production might have even surpassed its landmark predecessors.

Not that I’d do any better — or get past “hello” — in his native language, but there were some parts of the interview I couldn’t quite make out in the transcribing process, and a crappy phone line didn’t help, but I did the best I could to put together the most complete Enslaved interview possible. In the Q&A that follows the jump, Bjørnson discusses the Axioma Ethica Odini recording process, writing during the summer, Enslaved‘s four-show stint at Roadburn this year, and much more.

Hail Norway.

Was there a reason you wanted to record this album in your hometown, your own studios, on your own like that?

Yeah. The main idea was, boiled down to a very simple thing, we wanted to create more of the sound and energy from the live setting. Put more of it into the album. It’s pretty similar. It’s been pretty similar, but we wanted it to be really two sides of the same thing, and to be able to explain that is very hard. We’ve been wanting to do more of the recording ourselves, but we had to acknowledge that our technical abilities weren’t up to the task of recording an album on that level. Now, I’ve had my own studio for a few years, and Ice Dale and Herbrand run a professional studio when they’re not playing in Enslaved and have recorded a bunch of albums in the last few years. Now we’ve arrived at the point where we felt we’re good enough to do it ourselves to see if that would take us closer. It was an experiment and it really turned out well. It’s the easiest recording we’ve had, in that we didn’t have to keep an eye on the watch all the time. No engineers getting calls from their wives, having to go home early. On the other hand, it was also the hardest, because there’s nobody to turn to and say, “There’s a weird noise on one of the channels, what’s going on?” You had to fix all of that yourself. Definitely a learning process.

I would imagine it must have been strange or at least interesting to have to listen to the recordings on that level. In a mixing process you listen for things, but to have the band’s ears be the ears responsible ultimately for the album must have been different.

Absolutely. I’m not sure if that’s gonna be the way it happens on the next album. You never know, but that’s now an option. As long as we can go somewhere and have someone really good for the mixing, then it will be a good solution to do that. That’s when the fresh air and the second opinion is really valued. When you’ve been listening to the songs for such a long time that it would be a bit crazy if we mixed it ourselves. But that’s an option, if we record.

The mix was something I wanted to ask you about, because it sounds so much different than Vertebrae. It has a much fuller sound, and you can hear a little less compression in the guitars. Is that something you wanted on purpose?

I think at the point where we can to the mix, things were already a little bit more energetic because there’s really a lot more thunder and fire in the guitars than on Vertebrae. It’s different material, so it’s going to sound differently, and then Joe Barresi and Jens Bogren are two very different people. Jens has basically been doing death metal, black metal, extreme metal, for his entire career, where Joe comes from the classic rock, from the time before he’s been famous, he was recording in the ‘80s and has a really organic feel to what he’s doing. I think it’s a little bit more metal-ish, the whole philosophy of Jens’ mixing. He’s really pushing the envelope. He’s really adding some extra strength to it, where I think Joe is thinking about a lot about recreating the instruments and how the band sounds, while Jens is a little more liberal, perhaps, in achieving the balance. The difference would have been much smaller if they had been handed the same kind of recording. I have to say that. One of the things Joe did was try and get more out of the guitars. They were actually a little bit weak, weakly recorded, in that way. Sometimes I think some people joined in a calling down of his mix, but actually what I think he did was try to add a little bit of beef to it. You can’t blame anyone. Actually, we could blame somebody, but we decided to just do something different this time and record it ourselves.

Are you conscious in balancing the influences of the band, between the more extreme and progressive sides? Does that come up when you’re putting the songs together?

Not really on a conscious level. It happens, but what I do try to do is these little reality checks from time to time to make sure the stuff being written… We keep repeating that Enslaved is without laws and boundaries and all that until we’re blue in the face, we still do have some things that make it right for Enslaved. To go all acoustic and flute-y, Jethro Tull-ish, running around the forest for an entire album, would be doing an injustice to the name Enslaved. I’m open to doing all kinds of music that I would like to do in other projects and like that. So yes and no. We try to keep things as natural as possible, but there is always checks and balances in the backs of our minds, making sure we don’t lose focus and go nuts. Conservative liberals, in a musical sense.

You get a tension and release on a lot of the songs on Axioma Ethica Odini. The material goes somewhere, and you get a payoff. In terms of structuring the songs, how important is the chorus to you?

For me personally, sometimes it happens once or twice in an album that I get eager to do a structured song with a verse and a chorus and all of that. I think the singers are much more aware of that, with the whole balancing verses and chorus and all that stuff. I leave it to them, and it happens quite often in the band that we have to have little discussions in the rehearsal room just to agree on what is the chorus. We’ve had to make some compromises that in a song we will have two choruses. We will have one chorus and then the other. So it’s full of choruses, which a good thing, because the thing you feel is the most intense and uplifting is normally the chorus. But it works. The first time we really tried working in those formulas was the Isa album, and I was a bit skeptical, really. There is a reason why it’s being used so widely, all the time. It’s because it works.

You mentioned before having an idea of what Enslaved sounds like and using that as a base for building on and experimenting with. Do you ever think of Enslaved as influencing itself? I remember a couple years back Darkthrone talked about being influenced by Darkthrone. Is Enslaved influenced by Enslaved?

Absolutely. That’s when you start to realize how important the age thing becomes for a band. And working with projects and being active like Enslaved are all the time. I would say that yeah, it’s a source of inspiration, because the music was different then, and you go back and look at how you solved different decisions and all that stuff. I guess, yeah, the band is approaching 20 years now and the things we recorded 10, 15, 17 years back – so many things have happened in our lives that, if you go back and listen, it’s almost like some other band that you hear. In a sense, I would say we’re inspired by Enslaved. And Darkthrone (laughs).

Tell me about how the studio experience has changed. It seems like recording yourselves would be the culmination, but what have you been able to learn from the previous 10 albums that you were able to take and record this one?

The simple things. I couldn’t sit down and write a book of recording techniques. I would say it would be a fairly large booklet by now (laughs). It has to be good from the moment the band starts tracking it. I don’t get why people still think things are going to be corrected in the mix or even themselves out in the mastering and all that stuff. From the second you enter the door, everything – every cymbal, every guitar, everything – has to be really good on its own. That’s just moving problems. It’s easy to think, “Well, it’s almost good, I guess we can tweak the frequencies and if that doesn’t work, we’ll move the guitars forward in the mastering by pumping the mid-ends,” and all that stuff. That’s really just creating bigger problems for yourself. That was a really big focus this time. That’s a little bit of what happened on Vertebrae. The guitars didn’t get spiky enough for our tastes, and it was one of those things where we weren’t entirely happy with the way it was miked and everything, and we got this thing that it would be very easy to tweak in the mix. And when a guy like Joe Barresi says that there’s not enough to pull out of it, then you definitely have proved it. It’s very human to try and move ahead, but the unsexy part of recording is lying on the floor and moving microphones one inch at a time, one millimeter. You want to get in the control room, crank up the amps and start recording cool riffs and that stuff. But that’s an important thing. And then, I think the focus changed so much over the last 10 years. The producer fitting still has a lot to do with it. Joe is old school. He started a studio in the ‘70s. There’s no phones, there’s no internet, no crap like that, and that’s totally fucked up these days. You go in the studio and the cell phones are ringing all day, and the mentioned wives and girlfriends, and we are pissed off because the last time, the engineer stayed late and now is leaving half an hour before the day ends during your album. Things like that totally fuck up the atmosphere. I still believe that recording sessions should be magical and in a really secluded place to try and create something. That was just so great this time. They would leave the studio at night and I would go in there, leave my phone and computer at home, and just lock the door and record during the night. That really reminded me of how we used to do stuff. Social media and cell phones are really bad things for creating an album.

Both Axioma Ethici Odini and Vertebrae were recorded in the wintertime. Is there something specific you like about recording during the winter, or is that just the way it worked out timing-wise?

It’s actually a really good observation, as we’re stuck in this pattern. The music is normally being made in the summer, and I start handing around the demos of the songs in September, because in June and July – between the festival gigs – that’s when I tend to take my portable studio and just go somewhere, a cabin or wherever, and stay in the woods and write stuff. That’s why we rehearse and arrange things and record after the New Year. I think Ruun was the exact same way. I remember almost crashing driving the drum kit over the mountain, on the eighth of January or something like that. Maybe it’s about time to record something… though it’s pretty fitting for a Norwegian metal band to be recording in the winter, I guess.

In terms of adding effects and flourishes to the songs, are those things you hear in your head beforehand or studio experiments?

There’s one or two things we end up adding in the studio that wasn’t planned before. We have these little sessions to just sit down and listen through things. Rehearsal tapes and stuff like that. We’re pretty organized, so there will be an extensive list of where and what should be tried. So where know where we want to do stuff and have a direction of what we want to do there, but then we can have a pretty long list of stuff we want to try out. “Should we try some noise here?” “Should we try some tape echo?” “Maybe some samples?” We’re pretty efficient in the experimentation. I guess that’s sticking with us from the early albums, when we had a really, really strict deadline. It’s definitely an advantage to have these plans for working in the studio.

Was there a specific reason you decided to end the album with “Night Sight” and “Lightening?”

It’s always really cool to set up the order of songs. We always have nice discussions, interesting discussions, about that. We wanted the album to begin with the most immediate, intense, in-your-face songs. That’s the side A, I think, and using a tranisition – which is the “Axioma” song – going into “Giants,” which is the most different song, then concluding the album with the proggy sounds. It just felt natural to do it that way, to have the most challenging or experimental songs coming after the more expected ones. Putting them up front and perhaps creating a more familiar opening. We had some theories that sounded pretty good and I think it works. It’s a nice structure for the album.

I wanted to ask about “Giants.” It’s a real standout on the album. Was there a doom influence there?

Yeah, doom’s a really big thing, at least when it comes to me and Grutle. When we played Roadburn in 2008, we already had tickets to go down there and be in the audience. Then Celtic Frost cancelled, we got booked as the replacement. So that was weird, going from the tourist thing to headlining the festival (laughs). It was cool. We listen to a lot of that. Earth. They’re really a different end of the spectrum, but they’ve really found a way to convey these enormous energies in the low frequencies, the low tempos, it’s all about restraint. So yeah, that’s definitely an influence. When “Giants” came, at least in the beginning of the song, it’s a weird mix of being inspired by Black Sabbath and Voivod at the same time. It’s that whole affection we have for that musical genre.

How was your Roadburn experience this year?

It was fantastic. We did four different Enslaved-related concerts. The first day, we did a normal Enslaved concert, so to speak, and the next day, Tom G. Warrior from Celtic Frost/Triptykon was curating, so he had our other project, Trinacria, which is more post-rocky – no. I’m confused about the genres. What do you call Neurosis?

Post-metal?

Yes. A noise, post-metal kind of thing. Then I have an instrumental project called Dream of an Opium Eater, which is more or less pure doom, with horror movies on the screen behind us. And then we ended the festival by doing a concert together with the Norwegian Shining, a composition we wrote a few years back called Armageddon Concerto. It was only supposed to be done once, at this jazz festival in Norway, but we decided to pick it up and do it again at Roadburn. It was really intense. It was called the Armageddon Concerto, and on the big screen, we showed the live feed of the volcano eruptions in Iceland. It had a very nice “last day on earth” feel to it.

You mentioned Trinacria. Are you going to do another Trinacria album?

Absolutely. We don’t know exactly when. The whole thing at Roadburn. We were probably the last people in Norway who got ahold of a bus. Right there and then after the show, we decided, “Okay, let’s just skip saying we’re probably going to do more with this, let’s just decide we are going to do more.” I think we’re probably going to start writing this winter and maybe record next summer.

Ah, changing it up a bit to get those positive sunny vibes.

Yeah, it could be that I don’t really like hanging out on sunny beaches or being the cool dude walking around town in sunglasses. That’s a good time for me to drink beer and write songs.

I remember seeing you guys in the States for Vertebrae at SXSW. Is there anything you’re looking forward to for the upcoming US run?

We try to always do as much as we can on these tours and if there’s anything special in the town we’re at, see it, or maybe someone made some scientific discovery there, found some new apple or whatever. To put it mildly, I’m a beer enthusiast, so if there’s a brewery in the town we’re coming to, I’ll get in a taxi and go there, do the tours and of course buy a lot of souvenirs from the brewery and sample beers. Last time we were in California, I went to the Sierra Nevada brewery, me and the merch guy were actually the only people on the tour. We had three employees showing us the entire brewery. Everybody there were big dudes, like myself, beer bellies and long beards. It was a really good atmosphere. We ended the whole thing by sampling all 16 kinds of beer. It was a lot of coffee drinking before that night’s show, but it went fine (laughs).

Enslaved on MySpace

Nuclear Blast USA

That growth, most obvious in the clean vocals of keyboardist Herbrand Larsen, who joined the band full-time after Below the Lights, is readily on display throughout Axioma Ethica Odini. In many ways, it’s a tale of two albums, with two sets of four tracks, divided by a centerpiece interlude, each showcasing a different side of the band. Both are heavy, to be sure, but the wide variety of personalities shown throughout, and the bent toward experimentalism on the back half of Axioma Ethica Odini, makes the difference clear. One constant throughout is Enslaved’s unmistakable quality of vocal arrangements. Bassist/founding member Grutle Kjellson’s signature rasping screams, left too dry and too forward on Vertebrae, are as throat-searing as ever and punctuated by deathly backing growls and echoes. Opener “Ethica Odini” establishes a full production sound and shows Enslaved haven’t lost the edge or the drive toward extremity that made their early work in the ‘90s so powerful.

They get into a pattern between “Ethica Odini” and follow-up “Raidho” of breaking through the thrashing madness — and here I’ll note the killer tones captured in the guitars of Arve “Ice Dale” Isdal and band co-founder Ivar Bjørnson — for keyboard led prog breaks, during which Larsen takes the lead over Kjellson vocally, but it doesn’t last long. “Waruun” almost reverses it, keeping the music behind Larsen’s parts heavy in proportion to the other pieces of the song to establish more of a flow. This way, a strong opening of what fans would expect from modern-day Enslaved is given, but the band moves quickly to show they have more than formulaic songwriting on offer. “Waruun” boasts another excellent vocal arrangement, and if heavy music has ever raised the hairs on your arm or sent a shiver down your spine, it’s bound to do it here as well. The shortest of the “regular” (non-interlude) tracks at 5:38, “The Beacon” might also be the most extreme. Opening with blastbeats from drummer Cato Bekkevold, the song moves from an abrasive verse to a melodic chorus in a way not so much different from much of latter-day metal, but the production, vocals, guitar leads and angular break distinguish it. As it transfers back to the verse and again through the chorus one last time, it feels like a closer, which only heightens the transition into the interlude “Axioma” and further distinguishes the two pieces of the record.

There’s a distant spoken word behind washes of synth on “Axioma,” but the track is basically 2:20 of atmospherics to set you up for the back end of Axioma Ethica Odini. Transitioning directly into the lumbering, surprisingly doomy riffage of album highlight “Giants,” we immediately understand Enslaved are working with a different set of goals. With more clean singing from Larsen in the verses, Bekkevold’s driving double kick bass and Kjellson’s spooky cackle to bridge into a legitimately soaring, memorable chorus, “Giants” ranks among Enslaved’s most genre-bending, intricate and progressive work to date. Its only real competition in that regard is the three tracks that follow it.

I cannot stress enough the maturation in Larsen’s vocal approach and how much of a difference it makes across the hour-long span of Axioma Ethica Odini. In presence, range and execution, he is every bit a match for Kjellson’s screams and growls on “Singular.” They go toe-to-toe vocally in the verses of the song and it’s among the album’s most riveting moments. Though the song wanders somewhat instrumentally toward its midsection, a call and response later and swift but smooth changes in the guitar keep it from completely losing itself, and by the time six minutes have passed, I find myself tapping along to Bekkevold’s steady ride cymbal and snare hits, never really having lost the groove of the song or the album, but thrown a bit by the dip.

Fortunately, the closing duo of “Night Sight” and “Lightening” have a brilliance to them that makes it seem as though the last three Enslaved albums and the whole of Axioma Ethica Odini were meant to serve creatively as their intro. Hyperbole, maybe, but you get the point. “Night Sight” begins quietly, softly, with a croon from Larsen matching pace with Bekkevold’s cymbal, and works gradually into a pummeling payoff topped with Kjellson that then opens to Larsen explaining “Night-sight is bliss/For he who dares look into/A world where you embrace the opposite/Where you are whole,” in one of the album’s most wholly infectious moments. Really, it stays with you. I woke up in the middle of the night last night to go to the bathroom with it in my head.

And “Lightening.” Not only is it hands-down the most daring song Enslaved have ever done vocally, masterfully composed and arranged, but it also echoes the adrenaline-raising start-stop drumming of “The Watcher,” which closed out Vertebrae, as if to say, “Well, that was fine, but this is how we really wanted to do it.” They squeeze a Kjellson-led thrash break where on the opener the song moved into the more melodic, prog style, and jam more memorable riffs into the track than many bands do into the whole of their careers. Bekkevold goes apeshit on a crash cymbal in a nice flourish, and Larsen, Kjellson, Bjørnson, and Ice Dale all deliver landmark performances. Whatever Enslaved follow Axioma Ethica Odini with, “Lightening” is the standard by which I’ll judge it. Before you even know it, you’re back into the start-stop chorus, and the song ends on that note, driving the part home a couple extra times and leaving behind a loud, loud silence when it’s over.

Fans of Enslaved don’t need me to hock their genius, but I will say it’s hard to even call Axioma Ethica Odini a black metal album for the lack of attention it pays to the characteristics and (seeming) necessities that genre distinction requires these days. They’ve always broken new ground, for themselves as songwriters and for black metal as a whole, and Axioma Ethica Odini is no exception. The difference now is people are paying attention, and as Enslaved’s influence grows, it’s refreshing to see the members not rest on their laurels in terms of creativity. It might take a couple listens to really dig into, but if there’s been an album this year that’s worth the effort to get to know, it’s this one, and the more you put into hearing it, the more you’re going to get out of the experience. It is forceful, genuinely groundbreaking and leaves no room for the elitist “their old stuff was better” position to come off as anything close to a valid criticism. 19 years in, Enslaved sound like they’re just getting to where they want to be.

Enslaved on MySpace

Nuclear Blast

The last two streams are Enslaved and Dream of an Opium Eater, which features Enslaved guitarist Ivar Bjørnson, whose pretty mug accompanies this post.

Listen in good health:

Enslaved live at Roadburn 2010

Dream of an Opium Eater live at Roadburn 2010