Not a single band out there really sounds like Enslaved—arguably modern Enslaved records included, many of which have landed mixed in these halls. But one thing is consistent in the Angry Metal Guy message: Enslaved’s peak period produced timeless records that should sit atop the rankings of many a list. For many, myself included, that run extends from 2003’s Below the Lights to 2008’s Vertebrae, each incorporating different progressive and psychedelic ideas into Enslaved’s already idiosyncratic black metal approach.
Isa sits at a crossroads. Under the tutelage of Dennis Reksten, who had teamed up with Enslaved at the ripe age of 50,1 the past few albums received a smattering of spacey synth ambience that allowed Enslaved to explore a new dimension in their craft, culminating in 2003’s Below the Lights. But for Isa Enslaved looked to the electronic and crooning talents of Herbrand Larsen, a young audio engineer who had helped those same albums animate and glisten. The shift in personnel brought with it a shift in drama. Not to say that prior works had lacked that kind of tension, but with lesser Viking swagger,2 Isa rolls in its atmosphere through alien soundscapes and vicious harsh vocal cut-ins, with Grutle Kjellson’s inimitable, phlegmy rasp sitting dead center between twisting guitar lines and Larsen’s background counterpoint. No matter how strange and beautiful, Isa remains rooted in the brooding nature of Enslaved’s wintery, black metal identity.
In a manner that eludes many who play for Enslaved’s crown, Isa boasts a brilliant and otherworldly sense of guitar tone that provides and slice and crunch to heroic compositions. Bolstered frequencies lift the snarl of creeping tremolo runs with the weight of Kjellson’s crackling howls into reckoning rolls of Heimdall-weighed power (“Lunar Force,” “Violet Drawing”). Harmonic, heavy-handed, trv metal chords crash down with a classic, grooving beat to swirl a patterned Norse fury among pained wails and into resplendent, progressive modulations (“Bounded by Allegiance,” “Return to Yggdrasil”). Still Enslaved finds a firm footing in black metal, forging Bathory-infused riffage with anthemic tension and classic head-stacked energy to break up any lull in mood that Isa’s narrative lilts present (“Isa,” “Secrets of the Flesh”). And when fresh-at-the-time axe-slinger Ice Dale (Audrey Horne) slips loose with treble-knockin’, tricky blues solos (“Bounded…,” “Neogenesis”), his free and flamboyant style oozes with charisma.
Isa’s breakout and break-though progressive escapades give it the full life force for which Enslaved had been aiming with their earlier experimentations. Though never quite as out there as Norwegian neighbors Borknagar or Arcturus, Enslaved sense of cinema expanded through Isa via bookend atmospherics (“Intro,” “Outro”) and similarly-toned chord reprisals that reinforce the empyrean vibrations throughout every track. The gentle piano punctuation on “Lunar Force” gives shimmering, moonlight assist to the already gothic allure of its foremost stride. You can feel the arena swing that the now legendary, leaned-back Dale supplies to “Isa” and “Bounded by Allegiance” part in reverence to chorus breakaways, harmonized chants, and fluttering acoustics, only to return with additional amplified impact—crushing and unified attack. Isa lives on the edge of crescendo, with its first potential peak (“Bounded…”) ending in a hard stop before yet another catastrophic riff climb, which allows its twelve-minute epic “Neogenesis” the proper environment to build, to soar, to entrance with the majesty that it should. While no strangers to epic narrative, Enslaved used Isa to cement their legacy as masters.
If you ask a dozen Enslaved fans who find their aughts work to be their pinnacle, you may not always hear Isa come out as the dominant choice and for good reason. Much of the songwriting flex that Isa showcases presents in different fashions on many of this celebrated band’s works in that time frame. Whether the stronger gallop of Below the Lights, the heavier-handed psychedelia of Monumension or Ruun, or the near pure progressive romp of Vertebrae, Enslaved has many faces that they’ve worn well and better than other bands. But Isa stands alone for me as the balance of collective visions in the form of a well-armored black metal warrior—an album worthy of adoration from diverse angles of metallic enjoyment.
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