Album Review: Enslaved, Heimdal
It is difficult to convey just how singular Enslaved are. For over 30 years, they have continually refined their sound, moved ever forward and refused stagnation. That’s impressive enough when you have four albums, let alone 16, and their commitment to exploration, to developing new ideas and to pushing themselves and the styles they’ve helped shape to new places has led them to a place where the unknown has become part of their mastery. Their latest full-length and, yes, their 16th, is Heimdal, a title that translates to English as ‘home valley,’ and throughout the included seven tracks, from the kraturocky keyboard jabs in the first couple minutes of opener “Behind the Mirror” to the let-it-all-loose shred Arve “Ice Dale” Isdal unleashes for “Caravans to the Outer Worlds” — also the title-track of a 2021 stopgap EP (review here) — to the final harmony-topped prog-rock shove of the ending title-track, they are indeed at home in this next step of their ongoing, as yet unceasing evolution.
They are second to none in scope, and in the galloping triumph of “Congelia” — a shivers-up-the-spine riff-rooted life-burst that starts at 5:21 and consumes the rest of the song’s eight minutes; kin to standout Enslaved moments like “Fusion of Sense and Earth” from 2006’s Ruun (discussed here) and “The Watcher” from 2008’s Vertebrae and “Roots of the Mountain” from 2012’s Riitiir (review here), but even more gorgeously crafted now than it could have been then — and the depth of layering in guitar, keys and vocals of centerpiece “Kingdom,” and just about everywhere else, they remind that scope is an essential facet of who they are. And so is change. Progress. Movement.
Heimdal is not a record Enslaved could have made even five years ago. It follows a busy few pandemic years of livestreams and live albums after 2020’s studio LP Utgard (review here), and it is very much a sophomore release from the incarnation of the band featuring drummer and producer Iver Sandøy. Alongside founding members Grutle Kjellson (bass, vocals), whose signature rasp saves its most vicious gnash for the djent-doom initial unfolding of the title-track — a fitting way to let listeners know they’ve arrived at the end of all things — but who also works in some spoken narration for “Caravans to the Outer Worlds” and clean singing elsewhere, and guitarist/backing vocalist/keyboardist/etc.-ist Ivar Bjørnson, whose creative drive as main songwriter is the epicenter of the band’s own, as well as the undervalued metallurgy of Isdal and the synth/keys and soaring melodic voice of Håkon Vinje, who joined the band in 2017 and has only added to their reach in the time since, Sandøy contributes in multiple regards to the spiritual and aural force of Heimdal.
As a drummer, he is propulsive beneath the keyboard-led middle of “Forest Dweller,” which begins with acoustic-inclusive layered sweep and ends in a dream-drift exhale after the tension has broke, and no less able to hold the more open groove of “The Eternal Sea” either in its harmonized early moments, the stretch outright charred extremity that follows or the all-in engrossing melodic payoff that follows with his vocals as a crucial element of the whole. Also one of Heimdal‘s principal producers at Solslottet Studios (Vegard Lemme also assisted with engineering), where the basic tracks were recorded — Isdal did the leads/solos at his Earshot & Conclave Studios and additional recording was done at ‘the Overlook Hotel,’ where all work and no play reportedly makes Jack a dull boy — Sandøy is all the more integrated into the five-piece band across Heimdal, and his voice when added especially to that of Vinje, but also the rougher deliveries of Kjellson (mostly) and Bjørnson, results in arrangements that are nothing short of majestic.
Of all the places Heimdal goes in its 49 minutes — including home, apparently — across the material that’s perhaps more expansive than Utgard as an added benefit of the additional years of working with this lineup, Sandøy is able to function at both the core and the forefront of the going. He is there at the payoff of the introductory tour de force that is “Behind the Mirror,” alongside Vinje in a melodic-singing duo that pushes the entirety of Heimdal to a higher level of execution. That’s true even in the darkest corners of the material. The clenched-jaw raging intensity of “Caravans to the Outer Worlds” that reminds of the band’s madly careening earlier days, and the head-spinning, sharp-turning precision of “Kingdom,” the way in which the lumbering doom at the outset of “The Eternal Sea” presents the crashing of waves — all of these moments and so many others are able to be realized because on every level Enslaved can’t not challenge each other to surpass what they’ve done before.
Introducing Vinje with 2017’s E (review here) was a beginning point, and Utgard can now be seen as the start of a new era of progressive manifestations because of the affirmations wrought throughout Heimdal, and both the blinding luminosity and the severity of their material — on the most basic level, the things they can and will do — are harnessed with poise and purpose alike. Longer on average than they were last time out, the songs on Heimdal maintain urgency and atmosphere alike, and whether it’s the open-space first verses of “Forest Dweller,” crooning clean vocals over swirling synth drones before the drums fade in and Kjellson treats his vocal cords to another round of punishment, or the break in the middle of the title-track, a few spoken lines in Norwegian before the drums launch and punctuate the somewhat angular and still melodically stunning keystone ending — not a blowout, but a thoughtful, completing moment that gives over to residual synth to end; a universe’s answer back to the rowing oars and sounding horn at the start of Heimdal about 45 minutes and lightyears before — the band never lose their sense of direction despite what seems at times like a wildly spinning compass.
But that is who they are. Enslaved burn even the loftiest expectations in the fires of accomplishment and give credence to heavy metal as a form of high art. On the front cover, as ever by Tor Ola Svennevig (maybe based on landscape photography by Kjellson and Mirjam Orman Vikingstad?), there are three distinct representations of the past, present and the future, respectively, as water, earth and sky. In the water, we see the past as a reflection of the present and the future; subtly notable for the hillside object that might be a banner, speaking to a history of Norwegian peoples and places that is very much a part of Enslaved‘s thematic explorations. In the sky is the future, foreboding and bright in kind, unknowable. The proverbial limit. And where the logo and title are placed is on the level of the land, the present; somehow all we’re given between the two surrounding temporal infinities. It is a reminder not only that time is fleeting as the idiom says, but that none of those three stages can exist without the other. The present is our own home valley, and as Enslaved continue to chase and seek new realms of sound and presence in that unknown future, they are no less grounded in right now for the multidimensional, ever-blossoming nature of their calling.
Looking forward to this one.
I guess you’ve seen it, but are you familiar with the documentary series about Enslaved, called Heimvegen? I liked it a lot and thought it was really well done.
One of the most anticipated albums of the year for me along with the new one from Insomnium dropping today.
While trying to keep expectations in check I am very excited for the album and this only adds to that.
I got my shipping notification today. Hoping it doesn’t take until Friday. Then I have the weekend to myself to soak it in.