Capricious Nords: Enslaved Return With In Times

So I’ve finally gotten to listen Enslaved’s new album enough times to confidently offer up an opinion, but the first thought that comes to mind is that they have sneakily become metal’s most hard to predict band. I can never anticipate what they’re going to try next, and am always more than a little surprised when I finally get to hear what that is. The thing is, if you laid out their discography on a timeline, there’s a reasonable amount of linearity: the early 90s second wave Norwegian black metal roots, the switch to English language lyrics on 2001’s Monumension, the introduction of progressive elements on Below the Lights and Isa and the full blown era of prog-rock infusions ala Pink Floyd/King Crimson with 2009’s Vertebrae and onwards. Its in this latter era where the band have decided to throw out curveballs left and right, such as their reversion back to almost completely brutal, punishing black metal on Axioma Ethica Odini, a move that made some of us think that they had stretched the boundaries of their sound far enough and were making a move back towards their roots. But then RIITIIR happened, a big collossal “What the Hell?!” full of some rather Alice in Chains inspired hard rock melody, opulent Slash-esque guitar solos and more Herbrand Larsen than you’ve ever bargained for. It was a good, at times great album, and it set in concrete the idea that the band would remain vastly unpredictable from now on.

Their newest, In Times, is a further reinforcement of that notion; its certainly heavier than RIITIIR and at times matches the feral intensities of Axioma, but its simultaneously more smoothly melodic than anything off of Vertebrae. Its bothersome to me to have to contextualize a new album in relation to a string of its past predecessors, mainly because if you haven’t heard those other albums you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about. It just happens to be the easiest way to frame things with a band as diabolically complex as Enslaved. That actually got me thinking though, that perhaps In Times is an ideal starting point for anyone new to the band —- of which I’m sure there must be a few people around (right?). I say this because not only is In Times a phenomenal album, perhaps my personal favorite of theirs since Isa, but its their most accessible and representative album as well. There are only six songs here, and they’re all over eight minutes a piece, which may seem long and tedious on paper I know —- the band sidestep that by all but eliminating their more tedious, proggy-exploration moments that they’ve been prone to indulging in recently. The result is an album big on heavy riffs, wildly unrestrained guitar work, colorful washes of keyboard accompaniment, and a fifty/fifty mix of brutal and clean vocals that deliver hooks galore. It almost seems like I’m describing a Blind Guardian album (uh… minus the brutal vocals thing).

 

 

Its fair to say that In Times outright success is due in large part to the aforementioned Herbrand Larsen widening his range and scope as the band’s clean co-vocalist. In the past, Larsen’s moments tended to work like Dimmu Borgir-ian spot fills; those moments of cinematic, heavens opening up juxtaposition sandwiched in between brutal vocal sections. He had a particularly distinctive delivery in these moments, one that he repeated over and over and over again. There was a samey-ness to his singing, a monotone uniformity throughout the run of his vocal lines that almost came across as an instrument rather than actual singing, a role normally reserved for extreme metal vocals. He did attempt to change slightly, as seen on RIITIIR’s more accessible moments, incorporating in a little more in the way of variations in delivery, but it was still largely Larsen working in a comfort zone. Here however, he takes his quantum leap, a complete re-working of his role as co-vocalist and in the sculpting of his vocal melodies.

This stems from the songwriting itself, where clean vocal passages are underscored by a rhythm section that actually plays rhythmically in the standard sense. Take his vocal passages in “Building With Fire”, where Larsen sings over what comes across as almost alternative rock styled staggered riffing —- this is not to say it “sounds” like that, the guitar tone is rather typically modern Enslaved. Its a small touch, but one that allows Larsen to carry the song entirely on his own, rather than be subject to the irregular riff patterns that Grutle Kjellson can growl over with relative ease. An expanded role for Larsen means that these songs are not lacking in vocal hook laden refrains, a feature that allows the band to play around with degrees of heaviness and sonic brutality in a myriad of creative ways. On the album opener “Thurisaz Dreaming”, Larsen is emotive and expressive in his extended refrain sections, a perfect foil for Kjellson’s screaming bookends. He gets a star turn on “One Thousand Days of Rain”, its chorus the most gloriously pop moment of Enslaved’s twenty plus year career. Its elegantly worded refrain of “Wandering down the icy path / The sun is dying / The mother is crying” will stay with you after your first listen, forming the delicious nougat center of a great song you’ll keep coming back to again and again.

On that very song, Larsen trades off verses and sometimes single lines with Kjellson, over the undulating pulse of accelerating waves of melodic riffs and open chord figures. Kjellson (or Brutal Grutle as I enjoy calling him) delivers his extreme vocals like the bowling ball of howling fury that he always is, his voice far more wild and unrestrained than someone like Shagrath, or even Nergal. His tone is entirely his own, he sounds only like himself, and he doesn’t really change his approach (depending on your perspective, that’s either for better or worse I suppose). What he does succeed in achieving is a sense of agelessness, there’s no sense that his ability to reach peak intensity has diminished. His ability to deliver vocals like these this late in his career is a testament to whatever he’s been doing to keep his throat working.

 

 

As always, the musicianship is just utterly impressive, drummer Cato Bekkevold a force of nature unto himself, his fills and accent choices entrancing in their own right. I love his cymbal work towards the end of “Building With Fire”, or his militant snare drumming in “Nauthir Bleeding”, and his overall creative vision towards his role within Enslaved’s sound. He never smothers anything in double bass when its not needed, and keeps blast beats in reserve as something to be used sparingly only. But its guitarists Ivar Bjornson and Arve Isdal who really capture my attention. Isdal (“Ice Dale”) is an interesting guitarist within extreme metal, a guy more influenced by non-metal avant-pop players like U2’s Edge and Floyd’s David Gilmour, even alternative rock players like John Frusciante and Trey Spruance. Those seem like silly names to throw around as influences for a Norwegian guy in a band called Enslaved, but when you listen to his largely open chord permutations, you can hear that they ring true. Bjornson brings the proverbial sledge hammer in the form of muscular, cleanly written riffs, and here he sculpts them like a master smith at work. Check out the devastating high note progression in “Building With Fire” at the 1:53 minute mark, its one of my favorite moments on the album and I can’t get enough of how those open chord sequences flow directly into teeth gnashing outro riffs.

There are times when you know that you’ll keep coming back to an album weeks and months from now, and I will return to In Times with little effort needed. It wasn’t that way with RIITIIR, a record I found I had to be precisely in the mood for. Sometimes accessible doesn’t necessarily equate to something negative, and here Enslaved have the potential to cross over into a few other pools of potential listeners. I actually think I need to give it a few days of rest before listening again, I might be on the verge of overplaying it (five complete play throughs for this review alone). It is easily in contention for that distant album of the year list which I realize now is an absurdly short eight months away. All my earlier talk of Enslaved’s unpredictability means that I have no idea how they’re going to follow this album up a few years from now. Its actually not too crazy to suggest that they might revisit some of their earlier Viking/folk influenced sounds of eras bygone. That being said, unpredictability works both ways, there’s no guarantee I’ll enjoy the next thing they do as much as this one, so I’ll savor this while it lasts.

The Uncomfortable Reflections of Steven Wilson’s Hand. Cannot. Erase.

I think I’ve come to a dawning realization about my relationship as a fan and listener towards Steven Wilson’s work: Very succinctly told, I greatly prefer either his pure pop and/or metal-influenced styles, the and/or added in because often times they’re one and the same (or they’re pushed right up against each other). Its in Wilson’s more “prog” sounding moments where I tend to lose focus as a listener, or perhaps more accurately, patience. Its why I felt left out of the loop with his past two solo releases, 2013’s The Raven That Refused to Sing and even more so on its 2011 predecessor Grace For Drowning. The former was a sweepingly dark, 70s progressive rock inspired album that in homage to its influencing era, had a myriad of wandering instrumental explorations that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t (cue “The Holy Drinker”). I generally thought of it as a good album, a slight rebound from the jazz odyssey that was most of Grace For Drowning, an album lauded by many, but one that only caused me to miss the relative linearity of Porcupine Tree.

Even within the lengthy discography of that storied and now defunct band, I preferred the songs with either good riffs or great melodies —- I could stand to lose most of the wandering progressive stuff, not out of any particular disdain, but just because there was a lot of it and sometimes a song didn’t need to be over seven minutes long. I was introduced to Porcupine Tree by listening to “Blackest Eyes” on a Classic Rock sampler disc, and found it a perfect blend of heavy, metallic riffing with a gorgeous, shimmering melody that fed a pop-informed chorus. I enjoyed the album it came from, 2001’s In Absentia, but loved the album that came before, one Lightbulb Sun, which lacked the heavy riffs but made up for it in being the record where Wilson honed in on his spectacular gift for writing pop songs. It wouldn’t be until 2007’s Fear of  a Blank Planet when I thought he had finally delivered a complete record that catered to me; one that was dark, unsettling, heavy, and splashed with just the right mix of progressive elements and pop ear candy. But with the end of Porcupine Tree, Wilson’s lessening involvement with the pop-oriented Blackfield project, and the onset of a solo career that I viewed as a mixed bag, I began to wonder if Steven Wilson was progressing right out of my limits of being a fan.

 

So Hand. Cannot. Erase. is a reminder to me of that old adage about expectations. Actually I don’t really know a particular phrase or saying that could apply here, but its enough to say that I didn’t expect to love this album as much as I do. In the few weeks that I’ve known it, its become one of my favorite Steven Wilson related albums of all time, second perhaps only to Fear of a Blank Planet. Its worth me taking a moment here to briefly comment on its thematic/conceptual subject matter, because it makes the album resonate that much more. Wilson had at some point viewed a 2011 documentary called Dreams of a Life, which was the story of the life of one Joyce Carol Vincent; an attractive, intelligent, outgoing young woman who died in her London flat, and her body went undiscovered for three years. She had friends, she had family, yet for reasons unknown even to them, no one missed her or bothered to check up on her. I actually went out of my way to view the documentary a few days ago and its one of the most surreal films I’ve ever seen, the sort of thing that lingers in your mind.

Wilson’s storyline on Hand. Cannot. Erase. is a fictionalized, loosely inspired by version of Vincent’s story, about a young woman named H. who follows a similar road towards isolation and loneliness. There’s a deluxe hard back book based edition of the album thats filled with photographs, diary entries, actual newspaper clippings, and letters telling the more detailed story of H.’s life (its a seriously impressive package). I myself went with the single disc Blu-Ray edition, which sets the album to a slideshow backdrop of many of those same book bound photographs… it was great to be able to sit on my couch for the better part of an hour and get immersed in an audio/visual experience like that, but its not necessary to enjoy the album alone. In an interview with Faceculture, Wilson touched on the fundamental thematic core of the album, how a tragedy like Vincent’s could only have happened in the middle of a vast metropolis like London as a opposed to a smaller community. In his MetalSickness interview, Wilson expanded on that, “If you really want to disappear, go and live in the heart of the biggest city, surround yourself with millions of other people. Go right to the place where the most people live and you will disappear.”

 

I live on the southwestern border of Houston and its outlying suburbs, right in the midst of highways, urban expansion, too many parking lots and gas stations, the lot of it. I hardly know my neighbors, and almost never speak to any of them besides the occasional hello when passing by. In some slight way, I feel that I can relate to Wilson’s own autobiographical views that he instilled into his character. Its what makes a song like “Happy Returns” echo so resolutely within me, despite its rather detailed lyrical perspective being solely H.’s own words. It could be one of Wilson’s greatest singular accomplishments, a song as delicately beautiful and shatteringly epic as In Absentia’s “Collapse the Light into Earth”. And despite all its obvious melancholia, its essentially a pop song, built on simple chord patterns and a McCartney-esque “doo-doo-doo-do” refrain. Its emotional gut punch comes in the lyric “The years just pass like trains / I wave but they don’t slow down”, as vivid a portrait of helplessness against the transience of life as I’ve ever heard.

Its equal in greatness partner is the non-instrumental album opener “3 Years Older”, an acoustic/electric hybrid epic of English prog that is reminiscent of The Incident’s “Time Flies”. Here Wilson staggers folky, strummed chords with plaintive vocals next to passages with surprisingly funky, wild guitar work courtesy of guitar virtuoso Guthrie Govan. Its full of those particular kinds of Wilson moments that have defined his entire career —- it could be the sudden layering in of a harmony vocal to give a lyric some added richness, or simply his mastery of how to craft melodies that are evocative, or dreamlike. Sitting next to it on the tracklisting is the title track, which is quite possibly Wilson’s poppiest song since “Blackest Eyes”. Instead of being built on heavy, metallic riffing, “Hand Cannot Erase” is almost electro-pop in its palette, with guitars that sound like they’ve been lifted from U2 circa 1997, or from a Florence and the Machine backing track. Wilson’s vocal here is delivered at his earnest, wide-eyed best, with lyrics that you could imagine selling well on radio or some CW television show about over-dramatized teens. That’s not me detracting from it, quite the contrary, I’m puzzled as to why this wasn’t the first single.

 

That honor went to the very ambient, drone-like “Perfect Life”, which I love for the simple reason that its female spoken word guided first half reminded me of the British pop band Saint Etienne. They have a discography full of assorted moments with neutral voiced Sarah Cracknell waxing poetic about all manner of things. Its an important moment in the song because its our first introduction to H.’s words herself, as she describes the memory of the six months she spent with her adoptive foster-sister. As Wilson explained in the aforementioned Faceculture interview, the imagery of some of H.’s memories comes directly from Wilson’s own childhood, such as “Sometimes we would head down to Blackbirds moor / to watch the barges on Grand Union in the twilight”. Its one of those universal truths I’ve read from great fiction writers, that to make something feel universal, or relatable to everyone, the author is best served by simply focusing on making his character more specific, with more intimate details, possibly even autobiographical details from the author’s own life. It sounds contrary in theory, but it works. By the way, the video for this song is stunningly good (psst, its linked at the bottom).

This is the rare album in Wilson’s discography where even his progged out moments are interesting and complex in only good ways. Take the epic, nine-minute “Routine”, where Wilson is joined by Israeli vocalist Ninet Tayeb in a duet built across subsequent passages, Wilson taking leads in some, Tayeb in others, only joining together at the very end to softly sing “Don’t ever let go / Try to let go”. Its a cleverly written song about some kind of loss suffered by the narrator and her psychological process to acknowledge it. So she states, “Keep cleaning keep ironing /Cooking their meals on the stainless steel hob /Keep washing keep scrubbing /Long until the dark comes to bruise the sky”. There was even enough diversity in the thirteen plus minute “Ancestral” to prevent me from getting too antsy, but it comes out being the weakest cut on the album simply because its at times more of an extended jam session rather than a song. Its okay though, the rest of the album is nothing but songcraft of the highest order.

I’m simultaneously relived and thrilled about Hand. Cannot. Erase. and what it means for me personally. Its audible proof that my relationship as a listener with Wilson’s new work isn’t dimming, that he’s still capable of delivering music that enthralls me, and that I’m still receptive enough to realize that. Its also one of the more haunting, and thought-provoking albums I’ve come across in recent memory (and if you really want a taste of how deep it gets, check out H.’s blog entries on handcannoterase.com). It has a conceptual story that is frightening in its mirroring of reality, and its addressing of what it could potentially mean to live in an age of social networking, with no need to go outside of our homes, and how tempting it might be to simply withdraw from the real world. When I listen to this album and think about the thoughts and motives of its narrator and her real life inspiration, I can’t help but think about myself and how with a few decisions here and there, it could be me spiraling down into isolation. It could be any of us.

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOU_zWdhAoE&w=560&h=315]

 

Those Crazy Germans! The Scorpions’ Return to Forever

Its been a little under five years since the Scorpions released Sting In The Tail, the album that they decided halfway through its production would be their last. And in some respects it was, as far as being a truly fresh, organic batch of songs purposefully written for its release. It was a fine album as well, perhaps their strongest overall in twenty years, featuring a handful of gems that for me at least were comparable to their 80s/early 90s classics (check this retrospective for details). The last song on that album’s tracklisting was the rather excellent, wistful power ballad titled “The Best Is Yet To Come”; a title that could either be taken metaphorically as the band’s hopeful affirmation of their post-rock n’ roll lives, or literally as in this probably isn’t our last studio album. It certainly wasn’t going to be their last release, as the 2013 MTV Unplugged set proved, but in interviews the band seemed adamant that they had recorded their last studio album. It was around the promo tour for those unplugged shows that Klaus Meine let slip that the band was considering digging in the vaults for some unfinished material, stuff from the 80s, 90s, and even 00’s that they had been unable to utilize on the albums they were supposed to have been on. It was the kind of thing that sounded like it was meant for a boxed set, or perhaps as bonus tracks on yet another best of compilation —- it usually is for most bands.

So you’ve got to give credit to the Scorpions for firstly having the hutzpah for pulling a KISS and risking flack or scorn; and secondly for taking those unfinished riffs and song fragments and deciding to write a brand new studio album around them. If you’re prone to taking wide angle lenses to things like I am, you might consider this attempt a brave move at marrying the past and present, an actual merging of old and new. And they must’ve had a lot of old riffs clanking around, because with all the bonus tracks from the various editions of Return to Forever tallied up with the original twelve song track listing, the Scorpions are releasing nineteen new songs. Nineteen! That’s a double album by prog band standards, and by leaps and bounds the longest Scorpions studio album to date, clocking in at just over an hour. By anyone’s reasonable standards its close to impossible for an album that long to be filler free, and unfortunately, the Scorpions haven’t had the best track record of making wall to wall classic albums. Here I rate it about a sixty-forty ratio in favor of above average to good songs, and a couple potentially great ones amidst set against a set of almosts and not quites.

 

 

The good stuff first then, which is found as early as the album’s lead off single “We Built This House”, which is not a PBS program but instead a paean to the durability of the band’s fifty year career. I say this based on my viewing of the promotional EPK the band made where they spoke a little about each song on the album —- despite the lyrics clearly referring to a significant other known as “baby”. How they reconcile both perspectives is beyond me… maybe the verses are meant for the ladies (or the lads, whatever) and the chorus is just about the Scorpions themselves? I’m being pedantic, the Scorpions have earned the right to bend metaphors however they’d like, and the most important things here are the melody and the hooks. Its built on the classic Scorpions pattern of quiet/loud dynamics, a hushed verse that explodes into an arena ready chorus, but it does seem to be one of the few entirely new songs, its music penned by the band’s longtime Swedish producers (and MTV Unplugged musicians) Mikael Andersson and Martin Hansen. The other haus-titled song, “House of Cards”, is actually built on the back of a resurrected melody, its acoustic balladry reminiscent of the band’s early 90s Crazy World / Face the Heat era.

A personal favorite that might not be for everybody is the playful, sing-songy “Catch Your Luck and Play”, where a riff that reminds me of the “Rhythm of Love” swings back and forth and opens up in a chorus replete with “heys!” and “oohs!”. Its a glam rock styled approach that’s unusual for the Scorpions, but I like its sheer cheekiness —- there are moments in there when I’m reminded of The Darkness. Its chorus is new, but the skeleton of the song dates back to 1986-1988’s Savage Amusement era. Its paired alongside another oldie turned new, the very Blackout-ish “Rock n’ Roll Band”, an uptempo, adrenaline fueled rocker that is built on a classic, lean and muscled Rudolf Schenker riff. I was a bit put off by the clunky lyrics, but the guitars won me over here, its just a highly infectious riff and its kind of a shame that it didn’t make it onto one of their eighties records. Speaking of the lyrics, do yourself a favor and checkout the band member’s commentary on the EPK video, Klaus’ meandering description of this song’s origins are typical Scorpions —- something about riding around on the sunset strip, offloading into some gentleman’s club somewhere and when questioned as to their identity, loudly proclaiming “we’re in a rock n’ roll band!”. Modern rock bands would make this come off as sad, lazy, and appallingly pathetic. Klaus and company make it charming, affable even, a band of crazy Germans with Euro-tight shirts and thinning hairlines strutting around like cocksure roosters. This is the residue of an increasingly lost art form.

 

 

There’s a handful of other good songs; “Rollin’ Home, a laid back rocker with a Def Leppard-ish stomp; the ridiculously titled “Hard Rockin’ the Place”, built on a riff from the Blackout era; a handful of decent ballads in “Gypsy Life”, “Eye of the Storm” (being the newest of the ressurected song ideas, from the Humanity Hour 1 era in 2007); a Meine solo-penned lonely sounding number in “Who We Are”; and the panoramic “When the Truth is a Lie” —- again, all above average in quality, but nothing you’d hate yourself for missing. Where things get murky is with the vanilla alternative rock styled guitar rock of “The World We Used to Know”, a song that sounds like it came from the Eye II Eye sessions; as well as the blandness of the album opener “Going Out With a Bang” where chest thumping bravado fails to move me like the more emotional reflections on calling it quits found on Sting In the Tail. Its also unfortunate that “Dancing With the Moonlight” doesn’t seem to live up to its title, especially when you consider songs by the same title by other artists (Thin Lizzy comes to mind immediately). It has a cool backstory about the turbulence laden flight endured by the Scorpions, Alice Cooper and others that happened to also double as Meine’s birthday celebration. The song is somewhat paint by numbers however, with boring verses and a chorus that never seems to take off (heyo!).

So yeah, a lot of music to sift through, I don’t even think I covered all the songs but you get the point. Its a mixed bag, and with nineteen songs potentially on offer that’s about as good as it was going to get. I’m not sure why there was such an emphasis within the band to usher these out all at once. Surely a narrower focus on a smaller pool of candidates would’ve made more sense, such as sticking to the regular edition’s twelve song tracklisting. Maybe the Scorpions are just kinda over the whole studio process by now and wanted this to be a grand finale of everything they could’ve potentially delivered. In that case, its a successful project, just not their most listenable one. If you’re looking to celebrate the Scorpions 50th anniversary, get Sting in the Tail and just check this one out on Spotify. The band was writing great, fresh songs for most of the last decade… so much so that they really didn’t need to dig around in the past.

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