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Enslaved
Tuesday, 12 September 2006
Mean fiddler, London, England
By Stefanos Zachariadis
It was almost two years ago since I last saw ENSLAVED, as part of the Inferno festival in London, in January of 2005. Since that time, the boys have been busy - following the release of the highly successful "ISA" (one of the best black metal albums of this decade), the band came out with a live DVD, and more recently, "Ruun", an album that continues from where "ISA" left off and showed off the musical prowess of the band.
ENSLAVED are one of the historic black metal bands - and certainly one of the very few of the "inner circle" to be continuing to this day. But despite their "elite" status (which is, unfortunately very important to heavy metal and black metal fans), ENSLAVED have not been afraid to experiment with their music, to the extent that their compositions often sound progressive (but very heavy) rather than black metal.
Having seen the band play live before and being thoroughly thrilled about it, I was wondering if they'd be able to meet my very high expectations of them. Progressive black metal is a difficult genre to bring live, as it is, by its very nature, very loud, noisy and technical. It often happens that the music just comes out muddled and noisy, and all the melody is lost. This happens either because the installation at the concert venue is not up to it, or the band itself cannot bring the music to life on stage, without the aid of multi track recorders and other studio perks.
ENSLAVED were supported by VREID (which were unannounced and I missed them, unfortunately - "Kraft" is a great album!), INSOMNIUM and ZYKLON. INSOMNIUM were alright, and ZYKLON completely intolerable (I'm really not a fan of this music!). But this is going to be a review about ENSLAVED.
The band joined the stage at around 21:20 to the delight of the fans. For about an hour and a half, they bombarded us with a setlist that was surprisingly little focused on their latest album (only 4 songs from that were included) but spanned a reasonable part of their career. The band seemed in great form, the sound was good (though the drums did sound a bit flat), and RUUN sounds every bit as good live, as it does on your stereo. The band concluded with one encore, "Slaget", and not too many surprises (though a surprise, say, a cover, would have been great)
The setlist was as follows:
- "Fusion of Sense and Earth"
- "Path To Vanir"
- "ISA"
- "The Voices
- "For Lenge Siden"
- "Return to Yuggdrasill"
- "Essence"
- "Ruun"
- "Slaget"
ENSLAVED seemed to be enjoying their London audience very much, calling us the best audience in Europe. I've never seen ENSLAVED at another country, but both times in London were very memorable. Inspiring, intense and beautiful music, lots of passion, good atmosphere, intense thoughts and epic mental imagery - this is ENSLAVED live.
Review and photography by Stefanos Zachariadis | | 
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