Enslaved
Frost

THE REVIEW

The long walks in the silent parks of the North bring to mind memories, recollections of a nebulous past, a past in which the North was an elusive dream yet filled with passion, reachable only through long readings and arcane music.

"Frost" by the Norwegians Enslaved embodies the link between imagination and reality. It is a work that takes the mind on a journey, filling it with sensations reminiscent of a past never seen, never known but dark and fascinating at the same time. Released in the now distant 1994, it lives on those epic-funereal atmospheres that made the fortune of Nordic metal; it carries that aura of mystery of gothic rides among Viking tombs, torches in the fog, and lonely fishing villages forgotten by the world.

Returning from the acclaim of the excellent "Vikingligr Veldi", the then very young Vikings of Bergen present a platter that will rightfully enter the history of black metal and will expand its lyrical-instrumental aspects until it popularizes a subgenre already founded in the eighties by Bathory, the now multiple-decorated (and imitated) viking metal.

The beginning is muffled, an introduction of gloomy keyboards and dreamy synths like sailing among the gloomy promontories of the Faroe Islands, rowing in silence among the cries of birds and sinister noises before a flow of electric lava discharges its fury on the still landscape..."Loke"! The fearsome initial riff unleashes wildly and unhealthily like a bolt from the blue to make way for Torson's drumming in a context of absurd and uncontrollable speed where Kjellson's spat screams are carried away by the wind among the fjords. The sound is chilling, the melodies inconceivable, pain and epicness merge and give rise to confused visions of battles and deceptions, as befits the most mysterious and changeable character of Norse mythology.

"Fenris" speaks to us of chaos, of the last day on the planet, of the Ragnarök that will make the myth collapse into shadow... the initial narration sends shivers down the spine, Grutle's inspired voice fades, and a thrash riffing imbued with the "tremolo" sounds of Grieghallen twists mellifluously. An impactful acoustic pause and the Norwegian's rasping voice walk side by side with acidic guitars and accelerations that leave one stunned, with a classy symphonic finale where ambient-like keys uphold the insane speed of the rhymics and the perpetual hum of Björnson's guitar.

The rage is still unexpressed... so the clenched fists of "Jotunblod" and "Wotan" torment us for ten minutes of clawing through ice, furious blastbeats, sepulchral and sharp riffs with brief keyboard hints just to let us breathe for a moment. It all manages to render visible the lands abandoned to the volcanic desert in Iceland, the force of a dry, cold nature but overloaded with energy and feeling.

The epic "Yggdrasil" is a sweet pause for reflection amidst so much furious belluine wrath. The graceful arrangements of the six-string, the singing once clean, deep, and secure, a lullaby where traditional wind instruments, solemn toms, and a plaintive electric axe serve as a backdrop for this ancestral ballad.

If "Gylfaginning" has already eased the grip with doom-epic metal slowdowns combined with the usual stone-breaking riffs typical of Bergen bands, the finale fills with poetry and solitude with the structured "Isöders Drönning". A young woman of the north, the queen of cold lets her sad gaze run towards cliffs and waterfalls, alone in a pain that stains her blond locks with venomous nostalgia. Many ideas in this last hymn, acoustic parts shine among "ancient" keyboards and riffs as solid as the walls of a marble castle, melancholy now whispered, now shouted into the void, and the echo of accelerations that daze one last time.

If you are still with me after this long ride, I recommend you recover this jewel of Nordic splendor suspended between raw black metal outbursts and knightly epicness, to purchase a ticket to Iceland, Norway, or the Faroe Islands and once reached let the notes flow and to them abandon yourself among the clear skies of the northern hemisphere.