AFTER

I am not a regular prog metal listener, but usually am trying to listen at least most interesting releases when possible. This year I was really pleasantly surprised by Enslaved release. But this ex-Emperor frontman's third solo release is really better!

Ihsahn plays 8-string Ibanez guitar and occasionally keyboards on this album, but this music isn't axe-guitarist album. With his roots on symphonic black metal of Emperor, music on this album is very different from it, and being vary various, shows the trend to post-metal sound.

Compositions strongly differs between each other (for good for sure) and are sounding somewhere between a bit lazy black metal, some trash, melodic prog and some post-metal with free jazz (!) elements. Almost every song has its melody, tempos differ from slow to almost fast trash. Most important is album's atmosphere - differently from many modern metal albums with energy and rhythm absolute dominance, this album is melodic! Possibly,some prog metal fans could be disappointed by plenty of softer and not so heavy moments on the album, but such structure makes it much more interesting and attractive.

Vocals vary from growl and scream to clean voice, but its always sound good. Possible, most attractive and really positive element in all album's music is use of many sax solos, sometimes even free-jazz sax attacks! Far not very usual, but very successfully used on this album combination!

Not radically experimental, this album is more well balanced release,based on best components of modern progressive metal of last few years. Album of modern heavy music, but for pleasant listening, not for being shocked by unusual sounds or radical experiments. And very successful album!

As I mentioned above, it's very possible I missed few more really interesting prog metal releases of this year, but from what I listened of that genre, this album is absolutely the best one!

My rating is 4,5 rounded to 5! Very recommended not only for metal fans, but for every open ears prog lover!