IN TIMES

"In Times" is the 13th full-length studio album by Norwegian progressive extreme metal act Enslaved. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Records in March 2015. Enslaved has for the last many albums had a steady touring/recording cycle of two years between studio albums, but "RIITIIR (2012)" was quite the successful release for the band, and they have toured heavily in suppport of the album, so the recording break was a bit longer this time around.

It hasn't resulted in a rushed album written under pressure though as "In Times" comes off exactly as well written and detailed as any other album released by Enslaved. Compared to it's predecessor "In Times" features a few more black metal oriented sections (though not a dominant part of the album), but other than that it's pretty much a natural sounding successor to "RIITIIR (2012)". So the music style is still epic sounding progressive oriented black metal with norse mythology/viking themed lyrics. The songwriting is generally of a very high quality with relatively harsh black metal sections (especially the opening track "Thurisaz Dreaming" features some pretty raw and fast-paced black metal sections) seamlessly intertwined with progressive rock/metal parts, and mid-paced epic metal sections. Keyboards, synths, mellotron, heavy riffs, tremolo picking, melodic guitar solos, clean/harsh vocals (and a few viking chants), and good rhythmic variation are some of the elements which make up the music. The tracks feature natural progressions, which never sound forced or calculated, and that's a great strength when writing and playing music as progressive inclined as this. By now Enslaved masters this art to perfection.

"In Times" features 6 tracks and a full playing time of 53:05 minutes. All 6 tracks are around 8-9 minutes long and in the case of the title track nearly 11 minutes long, so all tracks are given room to breathe and time to develop. Again this doesn't sound calculated but sounds more like it's a question of where the compositions led the band while they were writing them. The adventurous and playful approach to writing material is also reflected in the obvious passion behind the delivery. It's hard to single out any particular tracks as highlights, as they are all great in their own right, but I'd still like to give a special mention to "Building with Fire", which is an unusually melodic track, with a soaring and easily memorable melody line in the clean sung vers. The melodic vers is complimented perfectly by the relatively brutal chorus featuring growling vocals, which provide the music with a death metal touch. The epic title track deserves a mention too as a highlight.

"In Times" features an organic, powerful, and overall very well sounding production. A perfect match for the music, and upon conclusion "In Times" is a high quality release on just about every measurable parameter. Despite the progressive nature of the music, it's an album which feels slightly more predictable than it's predecessor though and in the end I'm not left as surprised as I was when I first listened to "RIITIIR (2012)". That doesn't make "In Times" an inferior release to "RIITIIR (2012)", but the surprise element, which often means an artist has developed their sound a bit more than usual between albums, and which sometimes elevates an album from being brilliant to being a masterpiece creation, isn't present on "In Times". Quality wise it's just as great as "RIITIIR (2012)" though and fans of the sound on that album will probably greatly appreciate the sound and music style on "In Times". A 4.5 star (90%) rating is fully deserved.