Black metal always seems a bit scary to me, especially the look of the musicians is really extreme sometimes, and when I saw a picture of the band Enslaved, which had a meet and greet at local store Vacation Vinyl on Saturday afternoon, I thought these guys were built like mythology warriors. They are from Norway, like many black metal bands, and honestly, I knew nothing about them but hung out in the store for a little while because I was curious to see them. Unfortunately they didn’t perform, it was just a signing as they had little time before their big show at the Wiltern theater the same day with Skeletonwitch and Amon Amarth, a band which apparently brings an entire Viking ship on stage.
Let’s just say that Enslaved seems to be a big deal in the Black Metal world, just look at this 3,390-word review of their last (and twelfth!) album ‘RIITIIR’! I admire anyone who is able to write such an essay about an album, that’s true passion… and such a detailed dissection of each track! I wish I could do this. So I learnt Enslaved are all about ‘rites and rituals’, that they have ‘complex arrangements vocally and instrumentally’, and that they introduce ‘tempest guitar lead’, ‘subtle harmonic shift in the vocals’, and definitively transcend the genres… Black metal, Viking metal, progressive metal, even extreme metal?
I listened to the preview of their album on YouTube, and they obviously sound as scary as hell, with one of them singing with the most raucous devilish vocals-of-the-beast while there are also some surprising melodic and harmonic parts… Let’s be honest, I don’t listen to that kind of heavy and ferocious stuff but plenty people do and I read they are total rock stars in Norway. So how are these guys up close and personal? They wear their blond hair very long and they seem to be the most gentle Vikings I have ever seen, pausing with fans and doing the ‘rock on’ sign. The most surprising thing (or not) of all? One of them was wearing a Beatles shirt, and another one a Led Zeppelin shirt… such classic guys!