Was just about to post the next write-up but glad to get some feedback on Novembre still. Looking at it right now actually it seems like apart from The Blue, I've always felt the same about the final few songs on Novembre albums, they are always good and up to par with the rest of the album for me, but I've never gone gaga over them. Still, with reservations to The Blue and its Zenith - Argentic - Deorbit run.
Train, we had a power outage in Boston so they played as a bonus both Celestial Elixir & Crystallised.
That's awesome! (not so awesome about the outage though
I think I saw that on FB) They played Crystallised > Celestial Elixir here as well but I thought they were done after Crystallised so I actually left before they played Celestial Elixir
one of my favorite songs.
Got this one this morning so the timing feels right!
Ihsahn - Arktis. (April 8th)For fans of: Heavy metal, Prog metal and black metal (Leprous, Emperor, Arcturus, Enslaved)I remember checking out Emperor a loooong time ago and never thought I would actually enjoy their music one day, mainly because of the vocals. I guess to most people what appeals to them naturally is a human voice, and the more it differs from a human-sounding voice the harder it is to get into which is the reason a lot of people cannot get into growls. Ihsahn is basically this to the extreme if you ask me, but when you get into them, oh man do they come across as powerful!
My introduction to his solo work was actually the single off this very album,
Celestial Violence. Being one of the more straightforward songs on the album, I think it's just gorgeous, and it is a contender for my favorite song of the year for sure. I have been raving about this song even to friends who listen to EDM, I can not get enough of it. If you at some point have enjoyed Einar Solberg's (singer of Leprous) vocals and have not heard this, go do so right now. Leprous has actually been the performing band for Ihsahn's solo music. Ihsahn has also contributed some vocal work on some of Leprous' music, most notably the harsh vox in Bilateral's "Thorn". These artists have a lot in common musically while still being very different, but I would at least recommend Ihsahn to every Leprous fan and the other way around, in case they hadn't heard the other band yet somehow.
Now onto the album in general, this latest Ihsahn release is without a doubt the most accessible of his catalogue. The album includes some groovy hardrock/metal riffs in songs like
Until I Too Dissolve and
Disassembled, as well of some oddly remeniscent-to-Leprous synths on
Frail.
Mass Darkness features Matt Heafy from Trivium and is one of the heaviest tracks on the album, but not one of my personal favorites. I actually thought for the longest time that
In The Vaults was the Matt Heafy featured song since that chorus sounds so much like him.
Anyway, Arktis. seems like a very on-the-surface effort after the first listen but it is actually quite a lot to take in when you start getting into it more, do not give up on it after the first listen unless you can absolutely not stand the vocals. I found myself having listened to the album about two or three times while having listened to Celestial Violence for at least 50 times
but it is amazing front to back, really. One of the most interesting things about the best Ihsahn album (for most, including me) titled "After" was the speedy sax sections, which have been abandoned completely on this album apart from
Crooked Red Line, where it is used in a jazzier and more relaxing way than usual, similar to On The Shores off After. That is fine though, the sax would not fit on this album for the most part since this one is a bit more heavy metal/hardrock focused opposed to full-on black/avantgarde metal.
Favorite songs: Celestial Violence, Crooked Red Line, Disassembled, In The Vaults, My Heart Is Of The North