Emperor
Prometheus: The Discipline Of Fire And Demise

THE REVIEW

I adore this group and forgive me, I cannot be brief and focus only on the single album. So, bypass this review if you don't like long introductions and prefer a write-up that concentrates exclusively on the album, not on the context or how it was born. But let's cut to the chase and start the review:

The Emperor represented (back in the day) a band that was not at all stereotypical, in a black metal landscape that often lives more off image and the criminal and "folkloric" antics of its members, paying little attention to substance, preferring to recycle ideas from Venom, Celtic Frost, Bathory, or the bands of the first Norwegian black metal wave. This group belongs precisely to the "prime movers" of the world black scene. Certainly, they came after various bands like Mayhem and Darkthrone, but they were surely among the inspirators of all symphonic black, which in this group expressed itself far from the grandiosity, excessive baroque, and horror-kitsch imagery of some following bands, choosing instead to focus on nihilistic and depressed atmospheres! "In The Nightside Eclipse" is the manifesto of these sounds, an album that, in my opinion, remains unmatched, elevating to become one of the best extreme metal albums of the '90s, and so the subsequent "Anthems To The Welkin At The Dusk" is another major piece: barbaric, chaotic, with a greater use of the symphonic component, as if Wagner had decided to play black metal.

With this initial introduction, to arrive at the description of "Prometheus..." and to understand why the Emperor so distanced themselves from the initial sounds, we need to open another parenthesis: what I like about the Norwegian black metal scene, and unfortunately few highlight this, is the willingness to evolve and say something new in metal or even completely distance themselves from it. If indeed the followers of this genre have often become obtuse and more fanatic than the most die-hard Manowar fans, abolishing any innovation, taking the satanic themes too seriously, or even falling into the ridiculous, when in sunny and Mediterranean Italy they try to create a "little Norway" at home and talk about ancient forests and snowstorms or Odin, things that have nothing to do with our culture and are far from our sensitivity, if indeed the followers have often become obtuse, repetitive, and ridiculous, the fathers of the genre moved forward, just think of Arcturus with their very particular avant-garde metal or Ulver (among the first to propose the folk black metal blend) who today are a group exploring the possibilities offered by sounds influenced by electronics, but one could also mention Manes, Satyricon, etc.

Emperor falls into this list. Indeed, Ihsahn himself, the mind and leader of the group, has declared that he no longer feels a connection to the intentions, sounds, and themes of "In The Nightside Eclipse". But the metamorphosis of the Emperor, compared to other bands, is slow but still perceptible, indeed in their third album following "anthems..." that is "IX Equilibrium", the black matrix remains, but filled with death riffs that blatantly hark back to "Domination" by Morbid Angel (just listen to believe) and so if we want to talk about labels, one could speak of black-death, which doesn’t forgo the symphonic component, indeed in this album Ihsahn makes extensive use of his clean vocals, which reach their peak here thanks also to being often used in a theatrical tone!

The small but significant changes that occurred in the two previous albums, however, had not adequately prepared us for the complete change of sound register that occurred with this "Prometheus...", where Ihsahn's screaming decreases even more and the clean voice is used even more massively, but above all, the black atmospheres that were more or less always present in previous albums almost completely disappear here, becoming a mere influence and not a predominant part, indeed blending into a well-present symphonic component that never takes on grandiose connotations, indeed becoming almost baroque in this case, but not in the showy sense of the term, but of compositional elegance, often reaching "educated" tones and receiving influences both from classic metal and prog as well as riffs often in contact with a certain modern thrash.

The result? Very good, certainly not a masterpiece, but it's an album that reaches moments of absolute beauty such as in the last track "Thorns Of My Grave", symphonic, with a great rhythm section (the drummer Trym really proves to be alien in this album, reaching an absolute mastery of the instrument, combining sonic cleanliness and power), or in "Empty" introduced by the indispensable disorienting and very original riffs of the last Emperor, with a use of violins in the background that seem to refer to the classical music of the 1700s, all seasoned with guitar plots that seem almost to recall Voivod (more so as a concept of guitar sound than as a true musical influence), although in my humble opinion the pinnacle of the album is "The Tongue Of Fire", where the perfect synthesis of Emperor's sound is reached, just see the black beginning followed by a beautiful symphonic part with sublime melody and the very successful clashes between Ihsahn's guitar and theatrical voice. A gem!

This album, while not being a masterpiece, contained notable insights within it and seemed to be a well-achieved experiment, a transitional album that was supposed to ferry us towards something greater and better defined. Unfortunately, Ihsahn declared the Emperor dissolved as soon as the album was released (also because lately, they had become his personal project, indeed almost all the instruments on this album, except the drums, are played by him). But hope is the last to die, in fact, the Emperor has reunited, and we hope that soon they will be able to resume their fresh and innovative musical proposal, which made many subjects bow before the emperor's presence, who now claims his empire, left prey to the barbarians!