Thursday, November 29, 2007

ENSLAVED


I went to a rock show the night before Thanksgiving, and it was the first on in a LONG time. Enslaved played at El Corazon, and they played an amazing set. The band is from Bergen, Norway, and they started out back in the early 90s as a death metal band distinguished only by the fact that they dressed like Vikings and sang their songs in old Norwegian. However, starting at around their fourth full-length, they started to sing in English and introduce elements of progressive metal to their songwriting. By the time Below the Lights came out, they were using a goddamn mellotron! And flutes! And every album just keeps getting better; their last two, Isa and Ruun, both won Norwegian Spellemannprisens (roughly equivalent to the Grammys) for Best Metal Album. If you like heavy music, and you have not listened to this band yet, I strongly urge you to check them out. For those of you subscribing to Rhapsody, most of their catalog has been added over the past couple of months.

Anyway, the club was not that crowded (probably because it was the night before Thanksgiving!), and I was able to get right to the front of the stage for most of the set. Highlights for me were Violet Dawning, As Fire Swept Clean the Earth, Return to Yggdrasil, Fusion of Sense and Earth, and Ruun. Nice to feel the ol' chest cavity rattling from the double-kick drums once again! ALL HAIL TRUE METAL!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Bro- That is cool that you got to go to this concert. I caught the Rob Zombie show here in flagstaff last week. That was pretty kick ass, the orpheum was sold out. Being that he is a filmaker, he had a multi-media show with very cool and trippy imagery playing for the songs. the only downside it that it seemed like the multi-media show locked him into a set playlist. But still very cool.