QUINTESSENCE

Having made a review about their magnificent "Archaic Course", and seeing this one without any reviews yet, I had to do something to change that situation. Basically this is at the same style as the previous one, BUT... One or two facts change things! the epic stuff is still there but by now Grim, Kai and Bjornson had left the band, so you can imagine that changes had to happen. First of all, the production is probably the worst ever got out Abyss Studios( I really love some of the work recorded there: Dimmu Borgir's Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, Hypocrisy's albums, Old Man's Child's Revelation 666, etc) sounding muddy and undefined. Vortex's voice is more in the black metal style here, being his clean voice reduced to some of the most melodic parts only. My main complainment here is the introduction of Lazare's organs and stuff. This washes away many of the epic feelings. He is an incredibly talented musician, don't get me wrong, but that's not what Borknagar needed, I think. The hammond is terribly overused, the keys sound comic instead of adding that sorrow and majestic grandeur... The atmosphere changed drastically. This is more avantgardist, more progressive in a incoherent manner, if you see my point. There is still excelent musicianship, maybe too excelent for their objectives... By reading this you'll think I dislike the album, but that's not true. There are amazing songs there: "The Presence is Ominous", "Ruins of the Future" and above all "Colossus" wich is an incredibly epic song, but this album marks a turnpoint in Borknagar's career, and in my point of view, not in the best direction because my fascination for them decreases everytime a new album is released... AND CERTAINLY I'M NOT A [%*!#]IN PURIST! I consider this one the best one after Archaic Course and The Olden Domain, so it won't be a problem if I say it is one hell of an album. 4 stars, definetly!

Over the course of Borknagar's first three full length albums, they have become not only one of Norway's most prominent acts, but also made a name for themselves in the Metal scene as masters of Blackened Epic Metal. The atmospheres this band creates is spellbinding, giving the listener a feeling of standing upon the highest mountain and looking over vast, barren fields of desolation, only to gaze towards the sky and send your soul through spiraling dimensions.

Quintessence is Borknagar's fourth opus, and sees guitarist/primary songwriter/band founder Oystien G. Brun along with vocalist Simen Hestnaes (a.k.a. I.C.S. Vortex) and second guitarist Jens Ryland return with new drummer Aesgir Mickelson (Spiral Architect) replacing Grim, and keyboardist Lard A. Nedland (Solefald) replacing Enslaved's Ivar Bjornson. Former bass player Kai also departed after The Archaic Course, so all bass was played by Simen on this recording.

The two new members make rather striking impressions here, with Lars' keyboards adding various different shades of color to the songs, bringing a celestial atmosphere to Quintessence. His playing takes the Borknagar sound to a higher dimension, while Asgeir proves himself to be one of the most talented drummers in the scene with a completely breathtaking performance. His attention to detail and cymbal work is amazing.

However, it is the incredible vocal performance of Simen that is the highlight and peak performance here. Having impressed with his performance on The Archaic Course, he takes it to an even higher level this time around, soaring with passionate, utterly emotional clean vocals to his vicious Black Metal screams of vengeance. The most impressive displays are to be found in "The Presence Is Ominous" which sees the clean and harsh vocals layered together and the results are very effective. This song is one of the best the band has written to date, with its swirling riffs and incredibly effective vocal phrasings.

Overall, Quintessence combines the primal, bombastic Black Metal of the debut, the epic/majestic atmosphere of The Olden Domain and the progressive aspects of The Archaic Course to create one of the most spellbinding and enjoyable albums I've heard in year 2000. Highlights are the aforementioned "The Presence Is Ominous", "Ruins Of The Future", the beautiful "Colossus" and album closer "Revolt". By portraying all the best aspects of the three previous albums and opening doors to a few new musical dimensions, Borknagar have succeeded yet again.

'Quintessence' is the fourth album by Norwegian progressive black metal band Borknagar, from Bergen. If that's a bit of a mouthful, it essentially means they spawned from Bergen's prominent and often infamous black metal scene in the early 90s, but evolved to incorporate more of a folk and progressive rock influence into their music, to the point that their most recent album 'Origin' is entirely acoustic. No, that hasn't straightened anything out, has it? Well I tried.

For this particular album, the band intentionally reverted a little to their black metal roots, and abandoned much of the folk influence for space-age sounding keyboards. Vocalist ICS Vortex, as he likes to be called, makes his second and final appearance here before moving on to join Dimmu Borgir, and although his excellent singing style is heard on several songs, it's primarily substituted for a more standard black metal growl. This sounds similar to the 'death grunt' you may have heard from larger death metal bands, but mixed with a Popeye impersonation. In any case, it sounds a lot better coming from Vortex than his contemporaries. The guitars and drums also play faster for the most part, the afore-mentioned keyboards providing excellent background atmosphere and really filling out the sound despite the intentionally reduced production standard, even being granted a solo spot for track five. It seems that the band wanted to produce a really dirty sounding black metal album in the vein of Mayhem, but didn't have the heart to really kill the instruments.

At forty minutes, this appears on the surface to be an entirely standard black metal release, with little to distinguish it. While Borknagar's sound is one of the most distinctive within black metal, progressive metal, and whatever other genres they belong to (folk metal and Viking metal spring to mind. There's more to this metal lark than you thought, isn't there?), this album is admittedly repetitive. The template for most songs seems to be a fast riff on the guitars and drums, slightly under-produced and ever so slightly generous on the treble, with Vortex either growling or singing over the top. There's usually a slight interlude of either a guitar solo or keyboard wash before the song kicks in again, and ends before the five minute mark. There are some excellent exceptions to be found in the middle of the album, and indeed much of this album's value lies in the incredible song 'Colossus.' Vortex sings with pure viking metal force over an epic soundscape of mid-range guitar, measured drum blasts and, of course, the old trick of using the keyboard to pretend this song was recorded in space. It actually works here, to some extent. After this seminal number comes the afore-mentioned keyboard solo spot with the short but interesting 'Inner Landscape,' which tries a little too hard to convince the listener of the outer space thing and ends up falling on its face, allowing the spotlight to fall rightfully back to the other instruments, the synthesiser quietly resuming its background duties with a promise never to do that sort of thing again.

The album opens with the violent 'Rivalry of Phantoms,' a cool speedy metal song that's almost pure black metal, aside from the constant presence of those proggy keyboards. Vortex's growls are ferocious, and backed up superbly by the high screeching guitars that are at least memorable afterwards. Rather than continuing in this intended direction, the second song reverts to the grander style of the previous album, but remains just as impressive as its predecessor. Space-age keyboards are replaced with a slightly more traditional, medieval-Norway sounding instrument similar to that found in purist bands like Ulver and Empyrium, and although the pace is slowed, this song still remains pretty similar to the rest. Vortex's singing takes centre stage, and sounds really good. They should have used it more, especially in light of his imminent departure.

The rest of the album really does follow this pattern to the point of tedium, which would be expected for most other bands but disappoints considering Borknagar's usual higher standard. From 'Invincible' to 'Genesis Torn,' excluding the two songs already discussed, the vocals rotate from growling to clean for every other song, and the tempo is all pretty much the same. There's very little chance that anything from tracks three, six, seven or eight will be memorable even if this album were listened to on multiple occasions, though there are occasional pleasant touches like a return of the archaic-sounding keyboards in 'Genesis Torn.' None of these songs are inherently bad or boring, it's just their position on this album that reduces their impact.

Perhaps suspecting that things were becoming a bit repetitive and that subtle changes might not get noticed, the band grabs the listener's attention in the penultimate track by offering a slow and melodic semi-acoustic instrumental. This nicely sets the tone for the excellent closing song 'Revolt,' the most openly progressive song on the album and one that's more like the more impressive material the band would produce with new vocalist Vintersong on their next two albums. Black metal growls are still present, as they were even in 'Colossus,' but take a major back seat. At six minutes this is the longest song, but not too long to become dull. The instrumental changes towards the end are really impressive, and the album manages to leave the listener wanting more, something that would not have been possible had it ended on any of the earlier tracks. Every once in a while, this album really gets things right.

Had this been reduced to an E.P. consisting of the first two tracks, 'Colossus,' and then the closing two tracks, I would award it a definite five stars. As a forty-minute album it only gets four, and even that's a bit generous when compared to the far more excellent Borknagar material that's out there. The instrumentation is still precise and technically impressive, but there's not enough variation in the song style, structure, subject matter and the general way everything sounds. For casual metal fans who enjoy the occasional taste of Bergen black metal, this album offers some great songs for listening every once in a while but is a bit of a chore to sit through in its entirety. Plus, ICS Vortex is the second greatest vocalist they've ever had.

Continued struggles.

The mood really was killed here and with Archaic Course in what I see as two very average at best records. The atmospheres the band are able to create are just not there, and if anything, the so called progressiveness of the band serves as a detrimental effect on their sound rather than a positive one.

The keyboards are highly overdone, almost to a laughable cheesy factor, and this coupled with I feel to be less than stellar vocals. Also, the album is highly repetitive and none of the riffs seem to distinguish themselves from one another. I was really disappointed with this particular release. You will find to your liking some of the earlier Borknagar releases or some of the later ones if you are looking for this type of material.

Quintessence is the fourth full-length studio album by Norwegian melodic/ symphonic black metal act Borknagar. The album was released through Century Media Records on the 17th of April 2000. The album is produced by prolific Swedish producer and musician Peter Tägtgren ( Hypocrisy, Pain, The Abyss, Bloodbath, Lock Up). There´s been some major lineup changes since the previous album The Archaic Course (1998) as lead vocalist ICS Vortex has taken over the bass role ( in addition to performing lead vocals) from Kai K. Lie who has left the band ( ICS Vortex would actually leave Borknagar after Quintessence to join Dimmu Borgir). Ivar Bjørnson ( Enslaved) has also left the band to be replaced by Lars A. Nedland ( Solefald, Age of Silence) on keyboards. And finally drummer Grim ( Immortal, Gorgoroth) has left to be replaced by Asgeir Mickelson ( Spiral Architect, Testament, Ihsahn, Vintersorg...etc). Grim sadly commited suicide on the 4th of October 1999 by taking an overdose of drugs. He played on every Borknagar release before Quintessence.

All the personal changes haven´t changed the musical style much though as all songs are still primarely written by band leader and guitarist Øystein G. Brun. The music is still on the melodic and symphonic side of the black metal spectrum and the album has both raspy/ growling vocals as well as some really excellent clean vocals. The music is very keyboard laden and atmospheric. Don´t expect raw and unpolished black metal here. This is very well produced and the sound quality is professional and clean. Two songs stand out the most for me on the album and that´s the majestic and beautiful The Presence Is Ominous and Colossus which both have lots of clean vocals. It´s not that I don´t enjoy ICS Vortex raspy/ growling vocals but his clean vocals are really majestic and powerful.

The musicianship is excellent. While Grim was a really good drummer, Asgeir Mickelson really takes the music further in terms of power and diversity. He still keeps it pretty simple though compared to some of his other projects. Anyone who knows his work with Spiral Architect knows what he is capable of.

The first time I listened to Quintessence I was sure I would give it a 4 star rating but after a couple of listens my rating is now a big 3 star rating. It´s simply a matter of personal taste. I find the music a bit too trivial towards the end of the album and maybe a bit too melodic and symphonic for my taste as well. Maybe I just miss a bit more edge. Quintessence is a very well composed, performed and produced black metal album though so if you´re interested in the more melodic and symphonic part of the genre this will probably excite you a bit more than me.

Borknagar were really onto something by the end of the 20th century. The Archaic Course was a strong album and the Quintessence album pushed the symphonic black metal to an even louder and more extravangant level of bombast then anything before.

10 years ago I had a short fling with this type of music that lasted for about 3 albums. 2 from Dimmu Borgir and Borknagar's The Archaic Course. That is probably about all you need. This music is so formulaic and single-minded that you'll never need more then 3 albums. Each minute must be loud, it must feature dual guitars engaging in sharp-edged riffing battles that take place under dark keyboard heavy skies. Busy drums have to seal each possible breathing space tight with blasting beats and endless fills. Add a vocalist varying gutteral bile with clean anthemic metal chants and you got it nailed.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, it's a description that can be applied to many types of music, but there's actually only one track that moves me a bit and it sits right at the end. Revolt stands out with one of the very few remarkable melodies.

You get it, I'm not too fond of this, but it's well done and probably deserves 3 stars, maybe 4 if you're into this type of music.

Borknagar has achieved their trademark sound as we know if for most of the time on that album. The line-up has changed again, keybords and drums were it for this time. Despite this, the band sounds tight and players well aligned. Borknagar has by this time turned into a all-around metal beast manifesting black metal as well as death metal and progressive traces.

The band got heavier after delivering quite a polished third album.

The start of the album is powerful with a mighty long multiple shriek however, the sound of Hammond and warm vocals will soon remind us that this is above the usual metal league. Vocals have been more elaborated than on this album. "The presence is ominous" has a more memorable motives with semi-prog keyboard synths and prog/death intensive drumming with high and normal vocal. Great level of complexity for a black metal band.

"Ruins of the future" is a Viking black-metal track with ominous guitars and shrieks. The instrumental part with synths and keyboards is brilliant.

"Inner landscape" has undeniably influence in classical or progressive-rock music but that only holds for the keyboards, drums and bass are rather straight rock. "Invicible" and "Genesis torn" are argubly the heaviest tracks on the album with both death-metal and black metal bloody beat-up ;)

The latter has no similarities to the progressive Genesis, on the album with complex drumming, I also like growls that are pretty advanced, maybe slightly hardcore style influenced.

A small epic comes in the end, there is a even a good guitar solo and multiple shifts with clean vocals and growling and top notch drumming.

Quintessence, Borknagar's fourth album, was released two years after the underwhelming response to their 1998's album The Archaic Course. It is a record that rights many of the wrongs of its predecessor (messy and unfocused songwriting; overambitious experimentalism; sub-par production), but that also contains lots of material that falls into averageness and mediocrity, giving the overall impression of an album where Borknagar decided to play it safe. It is not necessarily a bad thing, especially in light of the pas-faux of the previous album. But in a period of burgeoning avant-garde extreme metal, it may be seen as a step back that puts Borknagar in the position of playing catch-up with other purveyors of the genre, like Arcturus, Enslaved or Ulver.

The band underwent a couple of significant line-up changes in the period between The Archaic Course and Quintessence. Ivar Bj'rnson, who had played keyboards for Borknagar since the debut album, left to concentrate on his main project Enslaved, while drummer Grim (also with Borknagar since the beginning) sadly passed away of drug overdose. They were replaced respectively by Lars "Lazare" Nedland from Norwegian avant-garde band Solefald and drummer Asgeir Mickelson (Spiral Architect). Bass player Kai K. Lie also walked out, but was not replaced by any new member, as vocalist ICS Vortex doubled up as bassist on Quintessence, instead. With this renewed line-up, in early 2000 Borknagar entered Abyss Studios and recorded the album udner the supervision of Peter T'gtgren.

Sonically, the album takes a half-step back towards the days of The Olden Domain. There are less clean vocals, and more grasps and growls. The music is also simpler and more direct, leaving behind much of the experimentation that one can find on The Archaic Course. The performances are also more streamlined, especially thanks to Mickelson's tight drumming replacing Grim's more extravagant style. Newcomer Lars Nedland also makes his presence heard, as the 10 songs of the album are washed with tons of stylish vintage keyboards (Hammond organ, mellotron). Despite these more or less subtle changes, Borknagar's music direction does not differ much from what the band had proposed on the previous two albums. Centred on 'ystein G. Brun's dense riffs, Quintessence offers a mixture of black metal, folk and avant-garde that bends the rules of extreme metal into more melodic directions.

T'gtgren's production is good, giving good balance to the various instruments and vocals. If anything, the sound is a tad too balanced, in the sense that none of the instruments stands out particularly on this album and one has to make an effort to figure out the instrumental leads that are being played on the songs. Much of the problem, however, lies in the songwriting and arrangements that are very much nondescript, almost as if Borknagar were afraid to indulge in bold songwriting after the backlash they suffered with the previous album. The result is 10 songs that are fairly bland and lifeless and where it is difficult to find episodes that one gets excited by.

The album starts well, with 'Rivalry of Phantoms' and 'The Presence Is Ominous' representing two of the strongest tracks of the record. The playing is tight and the music strikes a good balance between aggression, melody and structure, alternating between epic mid-tempos and faster parts. Nedland's keyboards take centre stage, especially on 'The Presence Is Ominous', and stand out as perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the whole album. Alas, the expectations created by these initial songs are soon disappointed, as the record starts to spin on itself, essentially recycling the same ideas over and over for its whole duration. 'Colossus', with its clean vocals, and 'Invincible', with its death metal vibe, rekindle some interest, but otherwise I find it a bit of a chore to remain fully attentive as the record plays through to its conclusion.

Overall, Quintessence is a decent album that certainly represents an improvement over the messy results of The Archaic Course, but also fails to reach the levels of inspiration and creativeness of The Olden Domain. If you are willing to forgive the somewhat dull and uninspired songwriting, you'll find things to like here as Borknagar's sound remains pleasant and enjoyable. But this record does not hold my interest enough to ensure I'll be playing this very often in the future, as there are better albums of progressive extreme metal out there even from the same period (Enslaved's Monumension) or from Borknagar themselves.