Let’s see how it starts with the first official track after an intro, “The Promethean Spark.” Saying it’s going to sound very little like his most famous band is probably a no-brainer at this point, so I won’t. Wait. Shit… Anyway, what you’re getting now is prog rock with some metal elements occasionally (especially on track 3). This one does have a catchy chorus with some fast parts, but nothing that could be considered heavy, except for the rasps. It sounds exactly like you probably expect.

Later, one of the most vicious tracks is “Twice Born,” which in some sections does seem like Ihsahn is narrating the entrance of a Disney villain. If it weren’t for the harsh vocals and guitars, perhaps it could be. I’m sure the label paid out well for the use of the orchestra, so he may as well use it. It’s appropriately bombastic, heavy, and somehow still quiet. It’s worth pointing out that the dynamics on this album are fantastic.

Ihsahn of course knows how to make catchy songs as well, one of them being my favorite, “Blood Trails to Love.” I think Cannibal Corpse can identify. It starts quiet yet menacing with whispered rasps. His layered vocals when the chorus hits have an impact because of them. It’s once again my favorite, but probably the catchiest on the album.

It does seem as though he had to put those songs with huge choruses back-to-back as the next one, “Hubris and Blue Devils” has one, but it’s a much longer track. The pounding drums seem to be at odds with the orchestral elements at first, but after a few moments, it just makes them hit harder by comparison. As for that huge chorus, its appearance is teased around the 2-minute mark. It is, however, well over a minute before it fully appears. A grower, not a shower. Some can relate. Moving on…

I’ve seen many mentions of this being the most “Ihsahn” of all his albums. With it being self-titled, that makes sense. So, love or hate him, you do know what you’re getting. While that’s a good thing, it’s also a fault because there’s certainly not going to be many surprises. Yes, a lot of it sounds the same.

As I mentioned above, there’s an orchestra, and it does a lot of heavy lifting. While I can remember excellent songs, I also can’t remember the riffs. So, if you’re looking for lots of heavy, headbanging riffs, well you probably should have looked elsewhere before this statement. However, in my view, I feel like it’s the best Ihsahn album in a while, and worthy of your time.

Ihsahn explains it best: “My focus for this album was to write within more traditional song structures and still give each song a strong individual identity, be that through a re-occurring melody, a chorus, sound design or a good old guitar riff. I also wanted to explore this on the production side, blending organic rock sounds with more modern expressions.” If that was his goal, then he’s succeeded brilliantly – this is an exceptionally rich and textured album, and its varied compositions and palette shows just how much his vision and creative confidence have expanded over the years.

Longtime fans will be pleased with the more metallic tracks, like the muscular blackened-prog of “Disassembled,” and “Until I Too Dissolve,” which rips with big, swaggering ’80s riffs like something off of Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears. Other tracks like “Mass Darkness” (featuring guitar from Matt Heafy of Trivium) and “Pressure” are constructed from busy progressive death or discordant sludge, but are then shot through with flourishes of neoclassical heavy metal. (In fact, the only thing I don’t hear much of at all on Arktis is traditional black metal.)

One of the most noticeable new additions to Ihsahn’s palette is a much heavier use of electronics and textural studio wizardry. “South Winds” exemplifies this with its Skinny Puppy whispers and industrial lurch, which are then followed by a swoony clean chorus. It’s the same juxtaposing approach as has been heard in previous work, but now Ihsahn is working with a palette that’s unlike anything he’s employed before. It’s inspired and wonderful, and reminds me of when Trent Reznor started playing with a brighter sonic palette and unexpected melody on The Fragile (still my favorite nine inch nails release). “Frail” is another strange industrial/electronic stomp, built from loops of rumbling piano and UFO death-ray sound effects. It’s the type of song that seems less composed than it was assembled, through experimentation and layering and bursts of inspiration.

It’s the increased use of clean vocals throughout the rest of the album – with increasing degrees of warmth and vulnerability – that really wow. “Disassembled” crests to a chorus that’s reminiscent of the sunny sweetness of The Beatles, and then in the bridge, guest vocalist Einar Solberg (of Leprous) croons like David Gilmour atop a Pink Floyd daydream of tremulous strings and bass. That breezy British psychedelia makes a return again on “My Heart is of the North” – this time with Ihsahn affecting a David Bowie-like croon. The passage stands out in stark contrast to the rest of the song, which is undulating and bluesy and punctured by stabs of jazzy organ.

“In the Vaults” is meditative and intense, with a minimalist palette that lets his clean vocals take center stage. The highlight on this track is the duet he performs with his own rasps – harsh and scraping pitted against impassioned and soulful. Noir ballad “Crooked Red Line” offers yet another battle of vocal personas: one sultry and low, another roaring and vengeful. This is also the first time I’ve truly enjoyed the appearance of Jørgen Munkeby’s sax – perhaps it’s the genre, where this sort of instrument is typically heard.

In the crushingly emotional closer, “Celestial Violence,” Ihsahn rasps and roars against a monstrous, tragic melody in the choruses, while Einar Solberg returns to handle the clean vocals in the verses. Given how polished and beautiful Ihsahn’s vocals have become, it’s a bit surprising that he gave Solberg the album’s climax – though maybe it’s ‘cause the guy absolutely kills it. If this were on a Broadway stage, it would bring the house down.

Arktis is Ihsahn’s most listenable and richest album to date, and certainly will be one of the year’s finest. While the songs are, on the whole, more conventional than the ugliest and most amorphous experiments on Das Seelenbrechen and Emerita, this is still not something you’ll just throw on in the background. Arktis is an album to savor and marvel at. Each song invites you to lean closer and consider each choice he made, even as you just want to let its power sweep you away. Bravo.

Ihsahn’s fifth offering, Das Seelenbrechen, takes its title from this passage, which comes from Nietzche’s 1878 publishing Human, All Too Human. It translates to “soul breaking,” which here, refers to the transformative process which leads to both beautiful and ugly art, and the right for each to exist. It is unclear, however, which way this transformation is meant to progress. Stones are moved to create structure, and animals are humanized to instill obedience, but when a soul is broken, is it then built up stronger than before? Or is this an act of dissolution meant to leave the soul in a darker and shattered state?

Given Das Seelenbrechen’s disparate musical identities and emphasis on chaos over composition, I have to assume it’s the latter. This is clearly meant as the expression of an ugly soul, and its filthiest and most formless moments are an intentional distancing from the aesthetic and polished apex that Ihsahn has been cresting towards.

That peak is nowhere more evident on this release than “NaCl.” It’s part muscular prog and part soaring ballad, Ihsahn channelling both Opeth and Porcupine Tree. Smoothly harmonized croons trade off with driving guitars and moody atmospherics, all backed by roiling and martial percussion. The track is both moody and playful, balanced and unpredictable, and it’s easily my favorite track on the album. Its follow-up, “Pulse,” is my second favorite – a lovely and melancholy Ulver-like ballad. Its main role on the album seems to be to lull you into reverie before Das Seelenbrechen hurls itself onto the rocks below.

There, that beautiful soul is broken and shattered in the shapeless roar of “Tacit 2.” Much like the thematic climax of Eremita, “The Grave,” this is an ambient and improvised drone-storm of spastic drums and gravel-throated wails. It’s also about as far from Ihsahn’s normally meticulous compositional style as you can get.

Its follow-up, “Tacit,” is more structured and measured. The spastic drums have more purpose, and the formless murk and ambience congeals and crests towards a huge orchestral peak. The piece seems to hint at both tragedy and triumph, at the slow reconstruction of that shattered soul. However, then Jorgen Munkeby’s saxophone screams in out of nowhere, honking and braying and generally ruining the emotional crescendo. I enjoyed its voice on After, but here the sax comes off more comical than cathartic.

There’s a similar moment on the second track, “Regen,” which begins as strongly as “NaCl” and “Pulse.” At first a delicate lullaby (with Ihsahn’s vocals a distant and vulnerable sigh), it crests to a massive and emotional crescendo – its heart shredded by rough, cawing vocals and heaving strings. Then those strings become overwrought, and then further overpowered by grandiose choirs. By the time a raucous guitar solo climbs atop the heap, the whole thing is buckling and showing its seams.

And while other moments of contrast and surprise are more successful (the gorgeous, Floydian solo in “M,” or the Jekyll and Hyde battle between Danny Elfman and Depeche Mode in “Rec”), they’re just glimmers through the murk. By the end of Das Seelenbrechen, I find myself wishing that these adventurous elements had been put in the service of more clarified and composed tracks like “NaCl.”

Perhaps that was sort of the point, if I’ve interpreted (or over-interpreted) the title correctly. Chaos over composition, the validity of ugliness as a pure musical expression. That still doesn’t make for an experience I’ll return to often. Maybe you uglier souls out there will find more solace and enjoyment here.

Instead, how about: “the overman… has organized the chaos of his passions, given style to his character, and become creative. Aware of life’s terrors, he affirms life without resentment.” Or “You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” And then there’s “The future influences the present just as much as the past.”

Interpret as you wish, but I’m easily able to link each piece of wisdom to Ihsahn’s remarkable career. Particularly that last one – four albums after Emperor, and the Wagnerian fury of his years in that timeless band is still there, but now it’s slashed across a carefully accrued post-black palette that blends stark atmosphere, lush clean vocals and lately, Jørgen Munkeby’s writhing, honking saxophone.

For the first two tracks on Eremita (Latin for ‘hermit,’ though you can also think of the album as After After), that collision of future, present and past is as triumphant as anything on any of his releases since Prometheus. “Arrival” is all blackened locomotive chug, with a minor classical melody cresting into a soulful clean chorus, courtesy of Leprous’ Einar Solberg. The track is bombastic and thoughtful, jagged and sleek, but it’s only the herald for the frenzied battering ram of “The Paranoid,” the latest hypercharged model of “Thorns on My Grave” or “A Grave Inversed.” Love the anthemic chorus – “and the shame feeds the anger feeds the shame feeds the anger” – as well as the saxophone that comes in at the end, disguised as a blatting warhorn (and if only we could send it back in time, Terminator-style, to kill its tootling ancestors on “Al Svartr.”)

After that, you may be caught off-guard by the slower, sensuous and well, introspective “Introspection,” which features guest vocals by Devin Townsend, but instead sounds to me like a chuggy mix of Ihsahn and Mastodon, most notably like something off of Crack the Skye. (Note to Troy Sanders, get us a Scott Kelly/Ihsahn duet on the next album). That’s a fun surprise, and a great track, but then the album gets a lot darker, more dour and experimental, and thus it’s not recommended for casual listening sessions.

“The Eagle and the Snake” is Ihsahn’s doomy skullcrusher, and here, the hook is that it’s the sax that provides the plodding percussion and melodic momentum. In fact, in a neat bit of metallic onomatopoeia, the sax takes on both of the titular roles – wild, jazzy screeches for the soaring eagle, and miserable honks and brays for the crawling snake. (A former raven makes an appearance as well; Jeff Loomis, with a blistering guitar solo). Then, two tracks later, “Something Out There” layers shrill, Anthems-era symphonics beneath a breakneck rumble, then smoothes out and glides into a crooned chorus. The “something borrowed, something blue” refrain made me think of a wedding rather than the rest of the album’s funeral mood, but it’s still a fast and melodic track, which is what I enjoy most from Ihsahn.

That’s in direct opposition to three of the other tracks, which you’ll either find daringly brilliant or momentum-shattering, depending on your mood. I’m still torn. I felt that “Catharsis,” an aimless tone-poem of warbling sax, mystical guitars and bass, trance-like drums and rasped exhortations, was sonically impressive, but aside from its lovely clean chorus, hardly earned its name. And then there’s “Grief/The Grave,” the album’s epic and monstrous climax. It’s Ihsahn’s most psychotic composition yet, all clattering, chaotic drums and manic-depressive sax, like the funeral-noir combo of Barry Adamson, Penderecki and ambient Leviathan. The lyric “He hammers,” chanted over and over, only makes it all the more disturbing. Like I said, if you’re in the right frame of mind and environment (buried alive would be my guess), you’ll find it overwhelming and spectacular, but it’s not going to be a frequent play for me.

I much preferred “Departure,” which struggles and spasms violently before setting off of the album’s most progressive and varied 7 minutes, from bizarre, chilled-out lounge to an ethereal and foreign aria of female vocals (courtesy of Ihsahn’s wife, formerly known as Ihriel when she sang with him in Peccatum). I can only hope that this variance of texture and mood will continue onto album number 5, as it felt to me like the most liberated and loosest of the album’s cuts (even compared to the aforementioned structure-light explorations).

Despite its less visceral, speedy or satisfying moments, Eremita is still a challenging work of art whereas other metal releases this year are merely entertainment. For me, Ihsahn’s most thrilling moments have been when new elements and alien influences batter and smash against the rigid black metal framework, so much so that I don’t even know if you can even describe his work as post-black anymore. As a longtime Emperor fan, the radical progression of his output means that I may never get the purely symphonic sequel to Anthems that I’ve always wanted, but, to return to our friend Friedrich, “extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.”

At first, album opener “Barren Lands,” with its stuttering rhythms and unpredictable guitar line, seems like a familiar extension to the sound of the previous two solo albums. No big surprise, given the return of Spiral Architect’s prog-masters Lars Koppang Norberg on bass and Asgeir Mickelson on drums. Yet it’s more of a conundrum as well, simultaneously brutish and restrained, dissonant and peculiarly melodic.

Its follow-up, “A Grave Inversed,” is quite the opposite. Even on its own, it’d be the most ferocious thing Ihsahn has done since “In the Wordless Chamber” (from Prometheus), but there’s one thing that takes it completely over the edge, to levels of batshit-insanity: a saxophone.

By now, you’ve probably heard that the saxophone, courtesy of Jorgen Munkeby (of Norwegian extreme-jazz outfit Shining – and not the Swedish black metal act), has a starring role in After, and it’s such an unexpected choice that it could have easily been a gimmick. In fact, I’ve only heard the sax used well in metal a few times, the last being Czech black metal act Oblomov‘s 2005 release Mighty Cosmic Dances. There, it was only used sparingly, and only as a strange addition to their astral cacophony.

On After, the sax is much more integrated and vital, although its initial appearance, during “A Grave Inversed,” is extremely bizarre – a psychotic warble that I can only describe as the accompaniment to a clown car massacre. Yet that’s only one of Munkeby’s voices – on later tracks, his sax croons, keens, brays and wails like a duet partner, bringing a startling amount of emotion and catharsis to the entire album.

This is most apparent on the ten-minute “Undercurrent,” at the album’s midpoint. In the track’s first half, shimmering guitars, submerged bass and smooth vocals shift like veins of hidden water beneath tectonic rock and ice. Of course, all that subdued pressure comes rocketing to the surface in the track’s proggy, roiling second half. Wait for Ihsahn’s layered, triumphant vocals at the 8-minute mark, and then the gorgeous, tortured sax melody that joins in – it’s not just my favorite crescendo on the album, it’s one of the most memorable passages of all of Ihsahn’s solo work.

Same goes for the ironically-titled “Austere,” a lush ballad featuring Hammond organ, delicate acoustics and rippling post-rock/sludge dynamics. It’s Ihsahn meets Isis, and it’s utterly captivating. Its counterpart comes earlier, with the soulful title track. “After” features the same sinuous, eccentric melodies employed elsewhere, but they’re shaped and soothed by Ihsahn’s honeyed vocals, more confident than they’ve ever been. (They’re also a wonderful counterpart to the raptor-croak we all know so well.) “Frozen Lakes on Mars” and “Heaven’s Black Sea” form another linked pair – “Lakes” a straightforward, churning stomp with a clean-crooned chorus, and “Black Sea” its more majestic, martial and ambitious reprise.

Finally, monstrous album closer “On the Shores” opens with the same saxophone melody that closed out “Undercurrent,” but it’s rendered as a bleak, bluesy eulogy. But whereas the earlier track went out with a despondent cry, “Shores” ends the album with a tsunami of blackened prog – undercurrents erupting from beneath austere, frozen lakes and whipping Heaven’s black sea into a grave inversed.

After is the most holistic, thoughtful and constructed of all of Ihsahn’s solo albums, but it may not hit you at first. It may not even sink in after several listens. Spend the time with it, though, and it will unfurl and envelop you in a way that few albums even attempt to. In many ways, it reminds me of 2005’s black/prog album The Sense Apparatus, by fellow Norwegians Frantic Bleep. That release also seemed difficult and unyielding at first, but has since become one of my favorite go-to records when I want an solitary, inward sonic journey. After will be giving it some serious competition in the coming months – if not the new decade.

“This is my first album written with 8-string guitars as basis which has been both challenging and inspiring,” he comments when discussing the creative process. “I also decided early on that I wanted to mix this album with Jens Bogren (Opeth, Katatonia) and recorded the album with that in mind. Asgeir and Lars have again delivered superb performances. I’ve always wanted to implement the saxophone in my music; Jorgen’s contributions truly added a silver lining to the album.”

Again working at his own Symphonique Studio, with additional work at Toproom Studio (co-engineered by Borge Finstad), After was meticulously laid out over an eight month period. The intensity of the project has more than paid off with early listenings already proclaiming it to be the most poignant creations of his solo efforts. “I have felt more confident and more at ease with the material,” relays IHSAHN. “In letting the songs themselves lead the way I just followed the natural impulses.”

After the demise of Emperor in 2001, IHSAHN continued his work with Peccatum, the band he formed in 1998 with life-partner Ihriel (Heidi Solberg Tveitan). After the release of 2005’s mini-album, The Moribund People, his first writings of solo material began. IHSAHN’s first recording,The Adversary, found the musician composing and performing all instruments and immediately struck a chord with his hordes of fans worldwide. The album afforded IHSAHN the opportunity to embrace more expansive sonic textures previously untouched in Emperor. The album also saw a return of his various lyrical muses. “Icaros, Lucifer, Prometheus, Zarathustra are all persons of history who challenged commonly accepted, most often enforced ‘truths,’ despite civilization’s persecution of them and their followers,” he comments. “Their stories are inspirational.  AngL would follow in 2008. Metal Maniacs said, “whereas The Adversary was a sonic coping mechanism – all aspects of the album were tightly controlled – AngL finds the visionary widening and deepening the canvas.” Decibel Magazine called the album, “as compelling as Emperor’s best; IHSAHN sounds as fresh as he did fifteen years ago, but with the hindsight of a grown man.” AngL featured a musical collaboration with Opeth’s Mikael Akerfeldt for the song “The Unhealer.”

Spellemann (Norwegian Grammy) Award Nominee IHSAHN (born Vegard Tveitan) began playing music at a very early age. As a teenager, his friendship with Tomas Haugen (a.k.a. Samoth) would trigger the start of his music career – one that to date includes over fifty individual recordings, five high-profile Emperor European tours (the band reaching US shores on only three occasions) and the respect of fans and peers worldwide. “Emperor is still one of my favorite bands. I count their compositions among some of the finest and most inspired that metal has ever produced,” says Teeth of the Divine (formerly Digital Metal).

In mid-2009, IHSAHN gave his first live performance selecting material from his first two solo albums; the performance in Oslo supporting Opeth. Early discussions in regards to After are indicating more live activities but where and when currently remains a secret.

Confirmed track listing for After is:
1. “The Barren Lands”
2. “A Grave Inversed”
3. “After”
4. “Frozen Lakes on Mars”
5. “Undercurrent”
6. “Austere”
7. “Heavens Black Sea”
8. “On the Shores”

http://www.ihsahn.com
http://www.myspace.com/ihsahnmusic
http://www.candlelightrecordsusa.com

“Scarab” opens in similar fashion, with a progressive riff that lurches back and forth, as if climbing an endless succession of staircases in an MC Escher drawing. Then it reaches a vista, shifting to a gorgeous, almost Mediterranean rhythm of clean guitar that’s almost Opeth-ian in its grace – quite a nice surprise before we’re plunged back into the original riff. It’s exciting to see Ihsahn blending unexpected colors into his palette – a bit of light to offset the thunderclouds and hell-blasted sunsets that his music usually conjures. A 70s progressive-rock keyboard mantra, paired with Ihsahn‘s most confident, least-theatrical singing to date, brings another surprise. “Scarab” is probably the most expansive and appealing song he’s done since Prometheus, and one hopes that the rest of the album follows suit.

“Unhealer” comes close – a morose, mid-tempo swoon which not only features the honeyed vocals of Opeth mainman Mikael Akerfeldt, but pits both men’s snarls and growls against each other in the chorus. Two of metal’s great composers/icons, working together at last. Given the stunning melodies that Akerfeldt creates for his own albums, I would’ve wished for something more captivating here, but this is Ihsahn‘s show, and it seems he’s just in a more sour mood.

Unfortunately, that sour disposition colors a good chunk of the album, as angL churns out a number of drab, almost willfully amelodic tracks. “Emancipation” mopes in circles before building to a screamed peak during the chorus, and while it seems like it’s aiming for triumph or epiphany, it’s dragged down by an uninspiring choral vocal. It’s just an unappealing track; “Alchemist” and “Elevator” are afflicted by similar issues. The latter features a surprising clean interlude with Ihsahn doing a striking David Bowie, but it’s not enough to make up for the rest of the song.

While these are not bad compositions by any means, I simply found them unexciting, and they failed to generate anything but a detached interest in the writing and craftmanship on display. Cleverness without catharsis does not inspire repeat listens, and given the history here, I would’ve preferred something much more savage and stirring. And I know this is not an Emperor album, though I’m not sure why Ihsahn wouldn’t want to recapture the barely restrained fury of his work from those days – Emperor is still one of my favorite bands, and I count their compositions among some of the finest and most inspired that metal has ever produced.

That all being said, angL does close out on two impressive notes: “Threnody,” a moving, largely acoustic ballad shot through with bluesy soloing, and “Monolith,” a track that finally delivers the ferocity and majesty that some of the previous tracks were missing. It’s a satisfying wrap-up to an uneven listening experience, and so my feelings about the album are ultimately mixed. It certainly delivers some new thrills and there’s much to dissect, but those listeners looking for an overwhelming assault may have to wait until the next release.

Now I know the above statement is a broad generalization, but upon listening to The Adversary, it’s hard not to put the Emperor tag on much of the album’s musings. It also shows how instrumental Ihsahn was in creative many of the more progressive moments in Emperor’s later creative zenith. Of course, the frontman’s return to his Emperor rasp as well as the King Diamond-esque croon creates a lot of the Emperor lean, but also the weaving, progressive guitars, elegant, sweeping synths and overall sense of majesty does give The Adversary a palatable Emperor vibe. So much so, that if I had heard this with no idea who it was. I might have said it was a new Emperor album, and that the band had just taken yet another progressive step in their sound.

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Regardless of how you view The Adversary, as an Emperor post script (as I did) or a unique entity, the fact remains that this is a superb piece of musical artistry that deserves a listen form any fan of elegant shades of the extreme and the eloquent. Overall, The Adversary is far more pure metal than Peccatum with far less experimentation. There’s far more twisting serpentine riffage, though there are plenty of more adventurous moments.

Onto the album itself. I defy any listener not to listen to the opening tones of ‘Invocation’, ‘Citizen’, ‘Panem Et Circenses’, ‘And He Shall Walk in Empty Places’ and the opening of the surprisingly catchy ‘Will You Love me Now” and not think Emperor with their volatile pacing (there are plenty of blastbeats) and labyrinthine tones. However, tracks like the vocally varied ‘Called by the Fire’, the gregarious ‘Homecoming’, mellow but grandiose ‘Astera Ton Proinon’, and the twisted operatics of closer ‘The Pain is still Mine’ sees Ihsahn step outside the Emperor box a little more, especially vocally and deliver more Peccatum -ish like hues of melancholy and experimentation.

There’s is something for both Emperor and Pecatum fans here, but ultimately The Adversary is for fans of finely crafted, masterfully delivered music that succumbs to no real genre, but has a deft appeal to a certain, lets say ‘Welkin’, fanbase.