Line #5 Music/Enslaved


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Enslaved_9609.jpeg]]
2
3	Enslaved are a BlackMetal and ProgressiveMetal band from Norway. Well-known for their interest in Norse paganism, their philosophically-inclined lyrics, their [[EpicRocking long, complicated songs]] and their old habit of dressing up in Viking armor for photo shoots and concerts (they haven't done it in a long while, but they are kinda remembered for it). Their music is characterized by the aforementioned long songs, a combination of HarshVocals and more melodic singing, ProgressiveRock touches (like keyboards, quiet parts and numerous tempo/time signature changes in many of the longer songs) and a strong Norwegian folk music influence. They're generally regarded as the [[TropeCodifier second-most influential]] Viking Metal band in history (after Music/{{Bathory}}, [[TropeMaker who invented it]]), and the ones responsible for much of its current definition.
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5	They were formed in Norway back in 1991 by Ivar Bjornson and Grutle Kjellson (also known as Kjetil Grutle). Their name was taken from an early Music/{{Immortal\|Band}} demo track, "Enslaved in Rot". While they began playing pretty typical BlackMetal, they began to add weirder structures to their music, as well as writing [[EpicRocking longer]] and [[ProgressiveMetal more complicated]] songs. They also deviated early on from the standard BlackMetal concerns (Satan, the occult, etc.) in favor of writing about Myth/NorseMythology. They rejected the label BlackMetal entirely, preferring to call their music "Extreme Metal".
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7	On their early albums, the lyrics were all in Norwegian, Icelandic and various old Norse dialects. As well, they tended to be more consistently brutal (with ''Frost'' being perhaps their most aggressive album). Their first release (other than the usual demos) was the ''Hordanes Land'' EP - three tracks of very primitive sounding BlackMetal with long (7-13 minutes each) songs and the odd synthesizer accent. It was [[UpdatedReRelease re-released]] a while later as a split with fellow BlackMetal band Music/{{Emperor}}. This more-or-less set the tone for their early albums - ''Vikingligr Veldi'', ''Frost'' and ''Eld'' - each of which contained epic-length songs and plenty of aggressiveness, with the occasional quiet part or keyboard to break up the hypnotic, blurry riffing. The most notable change in this period of the band's history is the departure of original drummer Trym for Music/{{Emperor}} after the re-release of the band's ''Yggdrasill'' demo as a split with Satyricon and his replacement with Harald Helgeson, who only lasted long enough to tour and record ''Eld'' before leaving himself.
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9	For the recording of their next album, ''Blodhemn'', the drummer's hot seat was occupied by the oddly-nicknamed Dirge Rep. Around this time they also added a second guitarist, Roy Kronheim. ''Blodhemn'' differed from previous releases mostly due to its cleaner, heavier-sounding production (by Peter Tägtgren, of Music/{{Hypocrisy}} fame). Their next album, ''Mardraum'', was something of a change in sound for the band - they began to write more complex songs, with more tempo and time changes than before. The next album, ''Monumension'', took things even further, with the ProgressiveRock influence even more prominent and with the lyrics now in English to boot! [[BrokenBase This pissed off a few hardcore fans]], but brought in a lot of new fans as well, and the change was mostly well-received.
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11	The next few albums continued in the same general vein as ''Monumension'', save for getting ''another'' new drummer (Cato Bekkevold) and replacing Kronheim with new guitarist Arve Isdal for ''Below the Lights'', and adding a keyboardist and second vocalist (Herbrand Larsen, who performed most of the clean vocals while he was in the band) for ''Isa''. The lineup remained consistent from ''Isa'' through ''In Times'', as has the quality and style of the band's work; Larsen departed in 2016, to be replaced by new keyboardist/vocalist Håkon Vinje for ''ᛖ'', while Bekkevold departed in 2018, replaced by Iver Sandøy for ''Utgard''. They also appeared prominently in the ''Metal: A Headbanger's Journey'' documentary, exposing them to yet more fans.
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13	The band members have been involved in a fair number of side projects as well. Most of the band collaborated with Norwegian noise duo Fe-Mail under the name Trinacria; they produced the album ''Travel Now Journey Infinitely'' (2008). Members of Enslaved also collaborated with their fellow countrymen [[Music/ShiningNorway Shining]] (not the Swedes) for a series of compositions called the Armageddon Concerto. This has yet to be released in its entirety, but some of the material from the concerto appears on Shining's album ''Blackjazz'', and Grutle Kjellson delivers guest vocals on two tracks. To confuse matters further, Enslaved has also released a split with [[Music/{{Shining}} the Swedes]]. Ivar Bjørnson was a member of Borknagar for awhile and currently has a neofolk-influenced collaboration with Music/{{Wardruna}}'s Einar Selvik entitled Skuggsjá, which released its debut album in March 2016. Arve Isdal was a member of a supergroup with Music/{{Immortal}} members entitled I, which released the album ''Between Two Worlds'' in 2006.
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15	Their most recent album is ''Utgard'' (2020). In short, Enslaved have been around for nearly three decades now, and continue to deliver [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic some pretty awesome]] work.
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17	----
18	Band members have included:
19	* Grutle Kjellson, lead (harsh) vocals, bass, occasional guitar (1991-present)
20	* Ivar Bjørnson , guitar (lead and rhythm), backing vocals, keyboards, programming, production help (1991-present)
21	* [[Music/{{Emperor}} Trym Torson]], drums, percussion (1991-1995)
22	* Harald Helgeson, drums, percussion (1995-1997)
23	* Per "Dirge Rep" Husebø, drums, percussion (1997-2002)
24	* Roy Kronheim, guitar (1997-2002)
25	* Arve "Ice Dale" Isdal, guitar (lead and rhythm) (2002-present)
26	* Cato Bekkevold, drums, percussion (2003-2018)
27	* Herbrand Larsen, lead (clean) vocals, keyboards and programming (2004-2016)
28	* Håkon Vinje - keyboards, vocals (2017-present)
29	* Iver Sandøy - drums, vocals (2018-present)
30
31	Discography:
32	* ''Nema'' (1991) (demo)
33	* ''Yggdrasill'' (1992) (demo, later re-released as one half of a split with Satyricon in 1995 with a bonus track recorded specifically for the re-release)
34	* ''Hordanes Land'' (1993) (EP, also released as a split with Music/{{Emperor}})
35	* ''Vikingligr Veldi'' (1994) (the title is Icelandic meaning roughly "Glorious Viking Square")
36	* ''Frost'' (1994)
37	* ''Eld'' (1997) (the title means "Fire" in Norwegian, incidentally)
38	* ''Blodhemn'' (1998) (means "blood oath" or "vengeance in blood", roughly)
39	* ''[[NewSoundAlbum Mardraum - Beyond the Within]]'' (2000) ("Mardraum" means "nightmare")
40	* ''Monumension'' (2001) (first album with lyrics mostly in English)
41	* ''Below the Lights'' (2003)
42	* ''Live Retaliation'' (video, 2003)
43	* ''Isa'' (2004)
44	* ''Return to Yggdrasill'' (live video, 2005)
45	* ''Ruun'' (2006)
46	* ''Vertebrae'' (2008)
47	* ''Live at the Rock Hard Festival'' (2009)
48	* ''Axioma Ethica Odini'' (2010)
49	* ''The Sleeping Gods'' (EP, 2011)
50	* ''Thorn'' (EP, 2011)
51	* ''[[FunWithPalindromes RIITIIR]]'' (2012)
52	* ''In Times'' (2015)
53	* ''Roadburn Live'' (2017)
54	* ''ᛖ'' (2017) [[note]]The official title of the album is the Elder Futhark rune Ehwaz, which resembles the roman letter M, but is pronounced ''E''. A lot of official sources simply title the album ''E'' for convenience, probably because a lot of people don't have the runic characters installed on their computers/mobile devices, but ''E'' is not actually used as a title anywhere in the official packaging for the album.[[/note]]
55	* ''Utgard'' (2020)
56	* ''Heimdal'' (2023)
57
58	----
59	!!Tropes that apply to Enslaved:
60	* AlbumIntroTrack: "Frost" is probably one of the best-loved examples of this trope in all of BlackMetal. "Audhumla: Birth of the Worlds" provides a second example from their discography, while "Intro: 'Green Reflection'" provides a third.
61	* BeigeProse: The song "Heimdallr" is lyrically very matter-of fact, with virtually no embellishment or unnecessary description.
62	* BilingualBonus: Their early songs are mostly in Norwegian (a few of them are in Icelandic or ancient Norwegian). It still shows up occasionally, such as in "Sigmnudskvadet", "Havenless", and "Útgarðr".
63	* BlackMetal: [[SpinOff Viking Metal, specifically]]. They reject the label, but it still (mostly) applies.
64	* CarefulWithThatAxe: Well... it's BlackMetal. A few songs they have released throughout their career avert this (see SurprisinglyGentleSong below), but the overwhelming majority of examples in their discography play it straight.
65	* CoverVersion: Songs they have covered include Music/LedZeppelin's "[[Music/LedZeppelinIII Immigrant Song]]", Röyksopp's "What Else Is There?", Music/FaithNoMore's "Jizzlobber", Music/{{Darkthrone}}'s "Natassja in Eternal Sleep", Music/{{Slayer}}'s "[[Music/ReignInBlood Jesus Saves]]", and Music/{{Autopsy}}'s "Retribution for the Dead".
66	* DoomMetal and PostRock: It's not a primary style of theirs, but post-metal has been an influence on some of their works, and they re-recorded "Jotunblod" in a doom metal style for the bonus 7" included with some versions of ''Axioma Ethica Odini''. "Forsaken" and the Trinacria album have been compared to the works of Music/{{Neurosis}}.
67	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
68	** ''Hordanes Land'' and ''Vikingligr Veldi'' have much longer average song length than most of Enslaved's following records, even the ones after their GenreShift to ProgressiveMetal; both releases have average song lengths of over ten minutes long. ''In Times'' is the sole exception here, at slightly under nine.
69	** The lyrics of ''Vikingligr Veldi'' (as well as the album title) are mostly in Icelandic, with the fourth track being in ancient Norwegian; most of Enslaved's lyrics on the following four albums would be in modern Norwegian, and after that English.
70	** ''Frost'' is arguably the only album in the band's catalogue that qualifies as "pure" black metal; ''Blodhemn'' has too much MelodicDeathMetal influence to qualify (it was produced by [[Music/{{Hypocrisy}} Peter Tägtgren]], after all) and all the others have strong ProgressiveMetal influence. Even ''Frost'' has some oddities like the pure FolkMetal of "Yggdrasil", though.
71	* EpicInstrumentalOpener: Lots of them. The best example is probably on "Større enn tid - Tyngre enn natt", which is arguably one of the best uses of this trope in history.
72	* EpicRocking: As mentioned [[RunningGag many, many times above]], YES. The best example is "793 (The Battle of Lindisfarne)" from ''Eld'', which is over 16 minutes long. The shortest song on ''Hordanes Land'' was nearly eight minutes long and the shortest song on ''In Times'' is over eight minutes long. Most of the other albums don't use it this consistently, but it still applies to more of their songs than not.
73	* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: "As Fire Swept Clean the Earth", in a bit of a metaphorical way.
74	* GenreShift: Very frequently throughout their career. The general trend of their sound has been adding more and more prog metal elements on top of their black metal foundations, a process which reached its apex on ''Below the Lights'' when they became a fully fledged progressive metal band. There are a few oddities in their discography as well. ''Bloodhemn'' almost sounds like melodeath much of the time, while the ''Thorn'' EP is atmospheric black metal in the style of Music/{{Burzum}}.
75	* GenreRoulette: ''The Sleeping Gods'' EP. On top of a relatively normal sounding prog-black metal track ("Heimvegen"), there's an ambient track ("Synthesis"), a folk metal track ("The Sleeping Gods"), and even an instrumental ''PostPunk'' song that almost sounds like a cover of Music/{{The Cure\|Band}} ("Nordlys").
76	* HarshVocals: Par for the course for a BlackMetal band.
77	* HeavyMithril: Much of their early material lyrically consists of retellings of the Norse myths. As they became proggier, they retained the mythological themes, but now focus more on the mystical and philosophical themes of the myths instead of the stories themselves.
78	* HornyVikings: They used to dress like them on stage. Mostly [[AvertedTrope averted]] with their lyrics though, which tend to either retell Norse myths or extrapolate from them in more philosophical or mystical ways.
79	* IndecipherableLyrics: Occasionally. Sometimes due to the above trope, sometimes due to clean or spoken word parts being low in the mix.
80	* IndustrialMetal: A major influence on Trinacria.
81	* LeadBassist: Type B: Grutle is the lead vocalist. Also an arguable type D, as the bass is fairly important in progressive metal, and his instrument is usually clearly mixed.
82	* LighterAndSofter: ''Vertebrae'' and to a lesser extent ''Ruun'' are this compared to the rest of the band's discography. ''In Times'' is a ZigZagged example; there are examples which are every bit as heavy as anything on their previous records, but there are {{Subdued Section}}s as well.
83	* LongRunnerLineup: Stayed the same from 2004 until 2016, when Herbrand Larsen left.
84	* LoudnessWar: Most of their albums are affected [[http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=Enslaved&album= pretty badly]] on CD, with clipping and brickwalling throughout the metal portions, although some of the vinyl editions have averted this. The general rule is that all Enslaved vinyl releases have way higher dynamic range than the CD, but it's not clear if all of them are separately mastered; the ones on Nuclear Blast (''RIITIIR'' and ''In Times'') appear to be so, with little to no apparent clipping on the master, but the ones on Indie Recordings, Back on Black, and Osmose Productions may not have been. Surprisingly, this may not always make a huge difference; for example, while the vinyl master of ''Vertebrae'' is still somewhat clipped, the vinyl edition nonetheless has [=DR12=] to the CD's [=DR6=], which is actually better than ''RIITIIR''[='=]s improvement from [=DR6=] to [=DR11=] on vinyl. The general rule, in short, is that Enslaved sounds way better on vinyl.
85	* MindScrew: Arguably some of their weirder lyrics - almost like if Music/{{Tool}} developed an interest in Myth/NorseMythology.
86	* {{Minimalism}}: Enslaved's early work is heavily based in this style, with often only around 3-5 distinct riffs per song. They use their minimalism toward very different musical aims than standard 'minimal' music though. (Evoking a larger sense of grandeur using slowly developing themes, rather than attempting to 'chill out' the listener.)
87	* NewSoundAlbum: Mostly averted, because the evolution of the band's style has been fairly gradual. However, there are a few anomalies, mostly listed above under EarlyInstallmentWeirdness. If you want to pick a point where the prog metal elements started to dominate their sound, it would probably be ''Mardraum'' or ''Monumension''. Also, see LighterAndSofter for a few subtle changes.
88	* NobodyLovesTheBassist: {{Averted\|Trope}} - not only is Grutle the main vocalist and one of the band's songwriters, his bass is even audible fairly often (on some albums more than others, though).
89	* NoEnding: "Bounded by Allegiance" cuts off suddenly at the end.
90	* Myth/NorseMythology: Their primary lyrical theme, especially on their early albums.
91	* ProgressiveMetal: Especially on the later albums, but it's been an influence on their music since at least ''Hordanes Land'' if not earlier. The only albums not to contain much progressive metal influence are ''Frost'', where most of the songs are kept within the 4-5 minute range (although there are three that pass seven), and ''Blodhemn'', which contains an atypical (although perhaps not surprising, given [[Music/{{Hypocrisy}} who was producing]]) amount of MelodicDeathMetal influence. (''Utgard'' also has somewhat shorter songs, but without really lessening the progressive metal influence.)
92	* RevolvingDoorBand: For the first decade or so they kept losing drummers. The lineup stayed the same from '04 to '16 though.
93	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The song "Lightening" from ''Axioma Ethica Odini'' seems to be about somebody enacting large-scale revenge on some group of people or other, among other things.
94	* RockMeAsmodeus: Averted, which is rare for second-wave black metal.
95	* ShownTheirWork: They REALLY know their Myth/NorseMythology.
96	* SiameseTwinSongs[=/=]FadingIntoTheNextSong: "Frost" -> "Loke", "Audhumla: Birth of the Worlds" -> "I lenker til Ragnarok", "The Sleep: Floating Diversity - A Monument, Part III" -> "Outro: Self - Zero", "Intro: 'Green Reflection'" -> "Lunar Force", "Isa" -> "Ascension", "Neogenesis" -> "Outro: 'Communion' (excerpt)", "Thoughts Like Hammers" -> "Death in the Eyes of Dawn", "Veilburner" -> "Roots of the Mountain". There may be other examples as well.
97	* SopranoAndGravel: The band alternates clean vocals with the traditional HarshVocals of black metal. On early releases, Grutle Kjellson would do this himself with other band members providing occasional backing vocals; on later releases, other vocalists handle most of the clean vocals (Herbrand Larsen when he was in the band, Håkon Vinje and Iver Sandøy now) while Grutle continues to do the rasps.
98	* SurprisinglyGentleSong: Variously played straight, ZigZagged, and {{subverted}}:
99	** "Frost", "Audhumla: Birth of the Worlds", "Intro: 'Green Reflection'", "Yggdrasil", "Hollow Inside", "Axioma", "Sigmundskvadet", "Synthesis", "Norvegr", "Frøyas smykke", and "Outro: 'Communion' (excerpt)" play this straight, although the first three are intros and the last two are outros. ("Norvegr" could also be considered an outro, but it's nearly eleven minutes long).
100	** "Entrance - Escape" and "793 (Slaget om Lindisfarne)" zig zag the trope, as while they have blasting black metal sections, they don't use harsh vocals (except for one brief MetalScream in "793").
101	** "As Fire Swept Clean the Earth", "A Darker Place", "Neogenesis", "Havenless", "Større enn tid - Tyngre enn natt", "Convoys to Nothingness", and up to half the songs on their more recent albums (particularly ''Vertebrae'') are subversions, as they start out quite serenely and (generally) eventually proceed into blasting black metal complete with the requisite CarefulWithThatAxe. On the other hand, ''Vertebrae'' in general is LighterAndSofter than the rest of the band's discography, although every track has HarshVocals.
102	* TeenGenius: Bjornson was 13 when he helped found the band and 16 when they recorded their first two albums.
103	* TitledAfterTheSong: As mentioned above, their name comes from an Music/{{Immortal}} demo track, "Enslaved in Rot".
104	* TokenGoodTeammate: Like Music/{{Immortal}}, they never got involved in any of the arsons, murders, or other questionable activities (jaywalking?) that many other second-wave black metal bands took part in, nor have they ever had political or satanic lyrics.
105	* TropeCodifier: For the Viking Metal subgenre.
106	* UncommonTime: Several examples throughout their discography. The title track of ''Eld'' contains an early one. The title track of ''The Sleeping Gods'' is one of many later ones. ''In Times'' probably uses more of this than any previous Enslaved album. In general, they have used this trope fairly extensively since the ProgressiveMetal elements have come to dominate their style.
107	* VillainSong: "I lenker til Ragnarok" appears to be one from the perspective of either Fenrir or Loki.
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Context Music / Enslaved