AFTER

Ihsahn's post-Emperor projects have never quite gained the prominence of the mighty Emperor, but albums like After might be worth a reappraisal if you happen to like the more progressive direction his work has taken. As with much of his post-Emperor work, it's a mixture of progressive metal and black metal influences, and I'd say it's more on the prog metal side of the equation than black metal (blackened prog metal rather than progressive black metal), with really only the vocals steering towards a more black metal direction a lot of the time. Jørgen Munkeby of Shining's saxophone is an unexpected addition - for better or worse, the mighty sax hasn't had much of a presence in metal - but a welcome one. Still, I can't help but think that as far as experimental progressive metal with a black metal aesthetic goes, both Shining and Ihsahn's unleashed apprentices in Leprous kind of outshine this.