Emperor-Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk

This is a band I have recently been turned on to. I bought their most recent album, Prometheus, and that album had me sold. The album featured raw Norwegian Black Metal up by dark symphonic choruses. When I bought Anthems, I was absolutely blown away. This album featured the brutality mixed with gothic beauty that was featured in Prometheus, but was even better.
The album opens up with Alsvartr (The Oath). This track is the perfect opener, it starts off with a single, clean guitar that creates a calm, but eerie effect. The song builds adding background effects, Ihsahn doing a monologue in a dark demonic voice, and then eventually adds a distorted electric guitar. The very end of the song features a symphonic brass section and guitar, which adds a powerful driving conclusion to this intro. After that the album launches into pure brutality, featuring all the traditional Norwegian Black Metal sounds, along with dark, hypnotic choruses in the background.
The music on the album is well written. It features dual guitars that blend together well. They use a lot of tremolo picking to create a harsh brutal sound, but also make use of lead riffs and steady power chords to create a consonant sound when one is needed. This is usually done in contrast with a wide range of symphonic styles used in the background. These symphonic effects are well composed and can range from a variety of styles, such as: a dark, gothic violin music, granderous brass instruments, and beautiful sounding choir effects. I am also impressed by Ihsahn’s ability to sing in both a black metal scream, and a clean voice, which molds to the music no matter what it may do. I am humble by the talent and musical knowledge this band has. I am also disappointed about the bands recent disbandment.
The album also come with a video for “The Loss and Curse of Reverence,” that can be view on a CD-Rom, which features the band playing outdoors amongst the scenic forest’s of Norway.

By FireDragon, september 2002