Arcturus
Arcturian

In ten years people change, many things happen, and things rarely stay as they were. In 2005, the Arcturus, the godfathers of avant-garde metal, released Sideshow Symphonies, an album that partially deviated from the path the band had embarked on way back in 1997 with La Masquerade Infernale, the path of unrestrained experimentalism, which continued five years later with The Sham Mirrors, an album heavily influenced by electronic music, a genre that has increasingly infiltrated post-black metal (consider, for example, Ulver, who completely abandoned the black metal of their first three works from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in 1998). With Sideshow Symphonies, Arcturus leaned a bit more towards progressive metal with hints of symphonic metal: nothing new, although it was of very high quality. And in 2015, ten years after their exit from the scene, Arcturus seem to be retracing the path they had abandoned.

Electronic music returns as a partial protagonist in Arcturian (the album's title), as is immediately noticeable from the very first seconds of The Arcturian Sign: the electronic element is the first to be presented in this new work and, after a few seconds, enters the powerful drumming of the legend (at least to me) Hellhammer, who immediately shows off with jaw-breaking double bass drumming, accompanied by all the other band members. And also comes the moment of ICS Vortex, already the voice in Sideshow Symphonies, with his very distinctive voice that seems to be in constant evolution, thanks to extensive use of falsetto and, at some points, scream. A good introduction to the album which, among highs and (few) lows; will bring us some nice satisfactions.

The second track, Crashland, is, in my humble opinion, the least successful of the entire tracklist, while still remaining a respectable metal song: its only flaw is being composed by Arcturus and not living up to their level. If it had been composed by some other band, it would probably be much more appreciable, but among other pieces of the Arcturian discography, it pales considerably. Nonetheless, it is quite enjoyable.

And now it is the moment for one of my favorite pieces from this latest album, Angst, which in Norwegian, the language in which it is sung, means "anguish." And anguish is precisely what it conveys to the listener. A song that plunges its roots into black metal, given the extensive use of scream and blast beats, and daughter, needless to say, of what is musically the most violent song of the avant-garde period of Acturus, Radical Cut, contained in The Sham Mirrors. In Angst, the electronic component is less present than in the previous two tracks, leaving more space for Sverd's keyboards, which manage to build an absolutely claustrophobic and anxiety-inducing atmosphere (obviously the credit is not his alone, but also the other members': consider the almost inhuman screams of ICS Vortex). A more than worthy heir of Radical Cut.

After Angst is concluded and the more extreme and black aspects are put aside, electronics return to dominate in Warp, along with the keyboards of the already mentioned Sverd. And once again Hellhammer delivers terrifying drumming, varied as few drummers know how to do.

Sverd's keyboards are again the protagonists in the next chapter, introducing another great song, even if perhaps a bit more commercial than the others, Game Over. His keyboards accompany the legendary drummer during the first verse, after which Knut's guitar kicks in with a good solo, albeit nothing exceptional. The second verse resumes: once again, the Sverd-Hellhammer duo accompanies the voice of Simen Hæstnes, and the guitar returns only towards the last lines of this verse and this time it doesn't leave us. A change of rhythm, the second part of the song is much more catchy and commercial, in one word, radio-friendly, although excellently crafted (if only all radio songs were like this...).

Electronics returns again in Demon, the best so far, along with The Arcturian Sign (in the opinion of the writer): here there's not much metal as we know it. Electronic music is the undisputed protagonist of this song: the only metal element is Vortex's scream, whose clean voice is always filtered. There's not much to say about this song: it won't be any of the best composed by Arcturus to date, but it's not too far from the masterpieces present in La Masquerade Infernale or The Sham Mirrors.

A violin, bells, on a bed of keyboards: this is the gloomy intro of Pale, another song that abandons electronic music for a few minutes to return to more strictly metal sounds: again, nothing original. It's an excellent song, more prog/symphonic metal with some nods to the band's black roots than avant-garde. As far as I'm concerned, the best part of the song is the final part, the most extreme one, with a filtered Vortex singing in scream.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the best track of the entire album, even more beautiful than Demon. A track that I would even dare to include in a hypothetical list of Arcturian masterpieces: a very calm song (something one wouldn't easily expect from a group like Arcturus), almost ambient, certainly the most avant-garde since the oft-mentioned The Sham Mirrors. I'm talking about The Journey, a song that could easily become a drug: if you listen to it more than once in a row, you can't stop listening to it. A song meant to relax the senses, after a feast of violent outbursts close to black metal, of electronic music, and of very fine prog/symphonic metal. The Journey is, to me, a masterpiece.

After a few minutes of relaxation, we re-immerse ourselves in the dark atmospheres of The Archer. Again, there's not much to say: it's a good song but not at the levels expected from a band like this. Nothing new, although very enjoyable.

Bane, the last song of the album, the second in Norwegian, is a return to the theatricality that characterized THE masterpiece of Arcturus, La Masquerade Infernale, with Simen Hestnæs taking up the style used by Garm in the aforementioned album. Another excellent song, which serves, and this is more than obvious, to satisfy the fans who are fond of that album.

In conclusion, Arcturian is a good album, a middle ground between the most avant-garde Arcturus and the more "mainstream" (if you'll pardon the term) of Sideshow Symphonies. But we are still far from hearing once more an experimental group that invents something new with each new song. If with La Masquerade Infernale and The Sham Mirrors each listening is different from the previous one thanks to the thousands of new and, why not, quirky ideas we manage to discover from time to time, this Arcturian only takes a couple of listens to absorb, at least broadly, because no substantial novelty was added. That said, it remains an excellent album.