Enthroned: Cold Black Suns (2019)

For whatever reason, I have not really gotten too far into the music of Enthroned.  Despite owning their 2007 release, Tetra Karcist, I just never really went any further.  That despite enjoying the hell out of that album.  The Belgian black metal band has an interesting take on the genre that goes beyond simply rehashing ideas that have been done time and time again.

This is the band's eleventh studio album, an impressive number for a band whose geographical isolation in a scene dominated by the northern European countries, has led them to be often overlooked.  On the last album that I had heard by Enthroned, they were a fairly traditional-sounding black metal band, but there were definitely moments where they stood out from the crowd.  The band has released several albums since then, so I do not quite know where the evolution occurred that led to this release.

The sound on this album is markedly different from that prior album.  This time around, the band has adopted a much more avant garde structure, relying more on twisted melodies and dark atmosphere than on a more riff-driven approach.  The sound is much more like a straightforward Deathspell Omega or Sigh (minus the kooky weirdness).  The best song on the album is the dynamic closing track "Son of Man", particularly toward the middle when the band channels Alcest for a more post-black metal sound.

The Enthroned album is incredibly impressive.  I will have to revisit their earlier album I have, but I can say that it did not impress me nearly as much as this one has.  I will also have to look back at some of the band's other releases.