ANSUR

Now this album kinda confused me at the start, it really took about 3-4 proper listens to fully grasp this album, Ansur are an incredibly talented progressive metal band from Norway, with elements of 70's progressive rock, black metal, extreme/tech metal, jam band, countryish rock and even just plain old heavy metal influences and it really shows, some parts sounded a lot like Enslaved fighting with Rush for control of some kind of power other's just drifted into the stratsphere with its fantastic lead solos that just came out of nowhere, now while i did really enjoy this album there was one fault i kinda didnt like with this album..the vocals.

Now while i am a big fan of extreme metal it just seemed to me like the singer was just throwing his voice around a lot and didnt just stick to one type of screaming/growling and it just sounded anoying and whiney rather than powerful and aggressive (like extreme metal should) musically though its class, opening off with some accoustic guitars on the first track before going into some cool Enslaved like riffs some Mars Volta moments a sax solo and ending with an awsome organ solo, yes a Saxophone AND AN ORGAN SOLO on an extreme metal album, its track 4 AN EXERCISE IN DEPTH OF FIELD that really shows off the guitar player Torstein J. Nipe fantastic talent with some awsome Sikth meets Between the Buried and Me type riffs and in the usual BTBAM style they have a cool country sounding mid section (which also sounds like it was recorded live in some venue) another interesting part in the album is the closing track PRIME WARRING ESCHATOLGIST the intro kinda reminded me of something Duran Duran would write, its just that diverse, but my favourite overall song was the epic CLOUDSCAPER the chorus has this fantastic Death meets Rush sounding vocal melody, just something that made me smile when i heard it;

The Tunguska Incident ? 7/10 Sierra Day ? 8/10 Phobos Anomaly ? 7/10 An Exercise In Depth Of Field ? 9/10 At His Wit's End ? 8/10 Cloudscaper ? 10/10 Prime Warring Eschatologist ? 9/10

My Conclusion? There's not many bands that come along this diverse and actually make it look easy, Ansur are one of them, just a great album for fans of prog in general.

Talented Kids Dive off the Indulgent End

Norwegian upstart Ansur's debut AXIOM was a promising, if rough, piece of work that I really enjoyed (see review). When I saw the beautiful cover of the follow-up WARRING FACTIONS, I was extremely excited to see where the band had gone. Alas, the prog-black metal is gone and in its place is something truly amazing?the end of the quest to pack as many genres into one album as possible. Having clearly listened to Between the Buried and Me's COLORS way too many times, the band moves into a straighter metal basis to launch into a "Everything including the kitchen sink and that thing you wring out the mop with in the basement" approach that is a big disappointment after the potential I heard in the debut.

The basic sound here is power metal with a lot of progressive elements, and is over half instrumental. But through the album we get an extended country hoedown, dance music, ethereal ambient passages, and virtually every style ever attached to metal. The song "An Exercise in Depth of Field" explains exactly what the intention was. The band does a passable, in fact interesting, job in each style, but what happened to the songs? With style changes happening so frequently, the entire album washes together into one big genre- mash. There is supposed to be a conceptual story line, but the vocal passages are painful and separated by so much noodling that there is little motivation to keep track of it.

One thing has improved by light years ? the production. The guitar tone is less amateurish, the mix is more unified, the effects are less overwhelming. What's more, the guitar playing is very impressive. In fact, this whole album seems like a prodigy guitarist with no direction to go. Restrained on the debut with flashes of brilliance, on the follow-up the term "self- indulgent" is an understatement. The talent of string slinger Torstein Nipe and crew is never in doubt. (Well, bassist Espen Aulie's vocals are atrocious, especially unaffected as they are on this album. The idea to over-process on AXIOM was smart.)

I applaud the band's attempt to evolve. But if they truly want to create their own sound (as per their promotion materials) they'll need to look back at what worked in their debut album. Good prog-goth-black is not that common. Good vocals in that genre are almost nil. Thank something for Garm. But songwriting is where the band needs to look hardest at itself.

And I hope they do. There is plenty of talent in this band, and plenty of potential. But unless you're just looking for audacious intensity in the form of genre-bending, get AXIOM.

Textural Prog Black Metal ? Not Bad

As a guy who likes my metal musically intense but not pointlessly brutal, I can have a hard time finding new bands that really connect with me. Most death or black metal vocals put me off, but in certain environments I think they work. So it was that wandering through last.fm that I found Ansur. Like many of my favorites, this band sits somewhere between post-metal and extreme metal, but on AXIOM the band keeps its feet still grounded in black metal while venturing into more creative territory. What amazes is that the band can go from post / sludge walls of sound to sixteenth note riffing to swinging chording and it all sounds good!

By far what sets this band and album apart is the use of texture. The distortion is big and puffy, the vocals are significantly effected, and various key pads are used to enliven the sound. The first track, "Earth Erasure," features a female choir vocal key sound that lends a very goth feel to the mix. These return intermittently through the album, along with some interesting left-of-center guitar fills. The soloing is typically quick but relatively rare. This band is clearly thinking of overall sound over individual showcasing. "Desert Messiah" utilizes at least 4 or 5 different guitar tones ranging from acoustic to clean electrics to various distortions.

Like most prog death (or black) metal, there are plenty of odd time riffs, jarring transitions, and dissonance. The vocals are as much shouted as throated, with additional distortion and effects added later. The band does use clean sections but these only distantly evoke Opeth. Clearly, these musicians are endeavoring to produce a unique sound, and it is hard on this disc not to admire them as they work. Two of the songs "The Axiom Depicted" and "Interloper" qualify as epics at 11 and 9 minutes respectively.

The biggest weakness of the album is production. The vocals are buried, the mix is pretty amateurish and the execution can be loose at times. At the same time, there is a raw energy that always comes in hungry young bands' work. To hear that fire in a goth, atmospheric album is a nice treat. Some sections can get a little repetitive, and a few of the rhythmic feels get overused. I find that typical of black metal in general, however, and this is much more complex than standard black metal in every aspect save perhaps the quality of the vocals.

All in all, this is a very nice effort that has me eager to hear the next album. As for my never- ending search through esoteric metal, I found a new little not-yet-refined gem for my collection. Atmospheric, complex, heavy, intense, just the way I like 'em.

Ansur is a trio that stems from Norway, the land of black-metal. Ansur didn't break with the tradition on their debuts. However, with 'Warring factions', their second album, we can notice a clear transition towards more eclectic musical directions, encompassing jazz-rock, old-school prog (hammong organs) but also neo-prog (keyboards and guitar work on "sierra day"), soul, avant-garde, space-rock, funk, and even country-rock on one song. The metal of their debut is still present but more elaborate, with many shifting rhythms, prog-metal vein. Vocals are sung in the black/death-metal style (and this is probably the only weak point of this record), but the pace is rather slow, and aggressive passages alternate with lighter ones. This album is truly impressive and showcases the virtuosity of each other, their extensive musical knowledge, and their ability to incorporate in their music so many different styles with ease and avoiding the stylistic composition. None of the songs follows a single musical direction. The opening and closing theme of "cloudscaper" is a rendition of the main theme of James Bond film 'Diamonds are forever'. The last song ends majestically with an obvious wink to the music of Iron Maiden (the leading theme begins with a piano/guitar duo then hammond organ makes the transition to a guitar/bass/drums that recalls the good old compositions of the masters of british heavy metal). Hopefully the sudden change of direction in their music will not create divisions in the band. Moreover, taken into account their young age and the host of influences (Brian Eno, Rush, Voivod, Dream Theater, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Reuben Wilson, Spyro Gyra, Iron Maiden, Pat Metheny, Pink Floyd, Egberto Gismonti, Wishbone Ash, Marillion, Albert Lee, Arcturus), one can only expect further gems from this band in the future.

— First review of this album —

Carved in Flesh is a demo CD-R limited to 200 copies and it was initially released in 2005. It was re-released in 2006 on cassette format. Limited to 100 handnumbered copies. So we´re dealing with a very rare release.

The music on the four songs on Carved in Flesh is pretty basic black metal without many signs of innovation or lust to experiment. There are both heavy riffing and fast tremolo ditto and the mood varies from majestic to cold and aggressive. The vocals deserves a special mention here as I really enjoy the extremely aggresssive approach. Ansur is not one of those symphonic keyboard laden black metal bands ( Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth, Old Man´s Child), but then again they are not of the primitive ( or true black metal if you will) kind either (Mayhem, Darkthrone, Gorgoroth), so they are somewhere in between but mostly related to the true black metal style IMO.

The musicianship is pretty good. No deliberately sloppy playing on Carved in Flesh which seems to be a desease on other black metal releases. The compositions are pretty well done but there are sections I could have done without. Sections which I simply find too primitive.

The production is thin and noisy. Just the way many black metal fans like their music to sound. I can hear the charm in the production on Carved in Flesh even though I normally prefer a more full and warm sound quality.

I think Carved in Flesh shows promise, not great promise but promise nevertheless. It´s not a very original Demo, but it´s pretty well played and the songs are not bad. I will rate Carved in Flesh 2 stars. Only for fans of black metal. Carved in Flesh probably holds very little interest for anyone else.