Emperor: Am I missing something? (C/D)

Hell, it's Marduk. Which makes it predictable: as usual produced by Peter Tätgren, solid, tight-as-fuck but a slightly mindnumbing hyperspeedfest. It won't win them any new fans, but it's not a disappointment. But if you really need some rabid, over-the-top openly aggressive warfare-themed black/death, there's nothing better than Impiety Kaos Kommand 696 at the moment. Makes Angelcorpse sound like a calypso band.

Personally I think that Behemoth, who followed an almost identical trajectory from fuzzy lo-fi atmospheric black metal to crystal clear technical death metal, fared a whole lot better. With Behemoths latest two albums I really hear passion, coherence, adrenaline, sweat and hard work as well as technical perfection - all quite different from how they used to sound (and I worshipped their demos, the EP and the first two albums!) but still a band that is worth caring about, while with Emperors last two records I never quite saw the point of the songs other than to impress their critics.

(what do I know, though, I love the new Vital Remains...with predictable old Glenn Benton behind the mic, yammering on about the same-old same-old -- but the hooks are incredible)

(*not that I'd EVER say that about Emperor! The less said about Satyr and Frost, the better, I suppose)

You know, I quite enjoyed IX Equilibrium when it came out, but I haven't played it in a looong time now. I don't really care much for Mortiis' lyrics, though they were definitely better than everything the band came up with since he left, but then, rock, metal, pop etc is generally not good for lyrics.
That being said, the little I've heard of the new album was really cool, some really interesting ideas thrown in there, and it struck me as pretty effective. Not like, say, Solefald, who'll come up with a great idea, then die of "I don't know what to do"-isms.

I frankly haven't listened much to my copy of "Hellward". My favorite BW albums are the Morrigan and Tearstained ones. Yes, I love King Diamond, dammit. Oh yeah, and Stiny Plamenu's fun. Come to think of it, Countess mustn't be forgotten, they're probably the label's second best band.
Megiddo's Devil & The Whore is pretty good, but suffers a bit from the whole "oh, this riff i've heard before, oh god, don't use THAT chord progression, are you The Sonics??" deal. The newest album I think I've played twice, haha.
Now if they'd release the damned Heretic album already.
I dunno, i think BW's a pretty good label for mostly what I call "beermetal", a label where the 80s early thrash days never ended, something I guess is either a really good thing, or really horrible thing, depending on your point of view.

Hi, I like heavy metal, please don't ban me ;)

Barbarian Wrath is a label I should have a subscription to. By now, they have tons of bands on their roster, and while they all work within the same paradigm of oldschool primitivity (as if "norsecore" never happened), but all of them have a distinct identity - you won't find any anonymous clones (like Infernö, Bewitched, Nifelheim, Warhammer etc) on their label. The whole "Black Metal, yes, but Black METAL" attitude is extremely commendable, and Opyros has a talent for spotting bands from every hellhole on earth. If you look at their roster now it's like a time machine, you'll see every region where obscure things were happening in 1991: Portugal, Hungary, Czechia, Holland, US, Japan, Finland, Colombia...

I haven't enjoyed a metal album in years as much as I enjoyed "The Devil And The Whore", somehow that kind of anthemic, "singalong" metal doesn't exist anymore. The signing of Heretic doesn't surprise me at all, that band was always perfect for the label and I know Opyros liked the debut immensely.

I think you have a point there. I played it a LOT when I first got it, but it doesn't seem to attract me all that much anymore. I definitely agree about the black Metal bit though, as most things coming out of BM in general nowadays, completely forgets to actually rock!
That being said, I often find that I have to be in the right mood for those bands, so I'll go through months where I'll listen to that stuff constantly, then go for a good while without really getting much into it. Then BAM, there it goes again, hah.

Have you heard Heretic's sideband? Opyros said one or more of the guys were in some rockabilly band, I think.

which is a bitch of an album to find, and I wonder if it's as good as people say it is.

Yeah, that album fucking sucks :)
Sorry, I really, really didn't get into that. Pop black metal at its most tedious, IMO. I don't get why all the black metal hamsters keep bopping me on the head and saying "but it's so goood! And they're french, french is totally hip today. Fuck that Polish trendy shit! France, man!"
Then I cry :(
Ohhh, the teears!
Then I listen to Sparks, and I smile again.

Then I listen to the mighty Nargaroth and dance!

emo BM-core, it's what's next

Yeah, I've only heard one Antaeus song, on the World Domination IV comp. I thought it was pretty good, though!

I read every one! I have a few albums John D and Siegbran have recommended, but not much.

Is it that difficult to find? Drakkar still lists it, at least in their january catalogue.

And yes, it is very good, musically a mix of Immortals "Pure Holocaust", Beherit and old Impaled Nazarene, and sonically rabid, in-your-face sharp and clear. Prozak is OTM here. The hype did put me off from buying it initially but I'm glad I bought it anyway.

that antaeus album bored the shit out of me - but i'm kind of retarded and would rather listen to mutiilation than, say, immortal.

Can't wait to get the CD replaced today and find out if the rest of it is as awe-inspiring. I truly was missing something!

It's true that there are fewer highlights on those two but still Prometheus is a fine black/death metal album though not nearly as deathish as Zyklon and Myrkskogs albums of the same genre.

Anthems is slightly overrated but pretty classic, especially the segue from the into track to the opening riff of "Ye Entrancemperium".

In the Nightside Eclipse, goes without saying, is completely classic and the one truly essential Emperor album.

I have to say that even though sometimes I disagree with him, Siegbran's depth of knowledge and understanding of metal is pretty awe-inspiring. John D too, come to think of it.

Emperor seems to do a thing that hardly any other metal does and that is make me feel like I'm being buffeted around in a mighty whirlwind.

In the Nightside Eclipse, goes without saying, is completely classic and the one truly essential Emperor album.

Whoopee!

otm!

"Hi, I like heavy metal, please don't ban me ;)"

remember everyone, emperor is touring the u.s. this year. be there or be square!

i'd say 'with strength i burn' from anthems is their defining moment. a near-perfect fusion of clean/black vocals, and compelling all the way through. some sort of interesting lyrical theme about trying to transcend the human limitations of the body or something. intriguing.

in the nightside eclipse would rank as the best overall record, i suppose. definitely the perrenial fan favourite and with good reason. nothing else sounds quite like it.

i don't dislike 9th equilibrium at all. it's not like it's less intense than what came before it - samoth is at the top of his game here. a handful of fantastic tracks too... 'sworn', 'an elegy of icaros', 'curse you all men'...

I've only heard In The Nightside Eclipse but that rules.

Cut Your Flesh and Worship Satan by Antaeus.

which is a bitch of an album to find, and I wonder if it's as good as people say it is.

i still can't tell if I prefer Nightside or Anthems so my solution is to always listen to both back to back

also is anybody seeing their reunion shows in Europe? if so I am jealous

I am not huge into symphonic BM other than these dudes and Summoning which is weird because Emperor were pretty much the first black metal band I got into so I thought that would be my shit.

is there other good symphonic BM in Emperor's vein? I heard people swear by Limbonic Art when I was 19

Setherial Nord is like the lost album between Nightside and Anthems.

Thanks!

Lunar Aurora's first few, esp the debut Weltenganger; sort of a midway point between Emperor and Limbonic Art

and another German band called Drautran, whose Throne of the Depths album borders on Anthems plagiarism, but it has that "pretty and vicious" tone to it

for the sake of posterity I should add that Lunar Aurora turned into something infinitely more interesting than "kind of like Emperor" in the second half of their career, and even in those early days there was something wonderfully ominous, almost psychedelic, in their sound; Emperor always sounded triumphant, like you're the protagonist in their songs, while Lunar Aurora had that impersonal Lovecraftian "you are insignificant and doomed" thing going on

some other symphonic bm albums worth checking out:

Odium - Sad Realm of the Stars
Nazxul - Iconoclast
Vesania - Firefrost Arcanum
Sirius - Aeons of Magick

and if you're feeling really adventurous
Apotheosis - Farthest from the Sun

the main problem with drawing inspiration from those early Emperor albums is that the resultant contrast is gonna be like that between playing a tabletop rpg and swinging an actual broadsword at actual leather-winged acid-spitting abominations -- but there's some merit to be found in the attempts

Nokturnal Mortum Goat Horns is a good Nightside-clone. Dimmu Borgir Enthrone Darkness Triumphant is also much closer to Emperor than their later stuff. Keep of Kalessin Through Times of War too.

Anthems will always be one of my favourite metal albums

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scattered_Ashes:_A_Decade_of_Emperial_Wrath

From disc 2 I already have "In Longing Spirit" , "Opus a Satana" , "A Fine Day to Die" and "Gypsy" but how essential is the rest?

The Moon Over Kara-Shehr rehearsal is very essential, best thing on that disc. Recorded between Nightside and Anthems, Hellhammer on drums, Steinar from Arcturus on keyboards, and it's glorious washed-out chaos.

Surprisingly, Scattered Ashes is one of the most well put-together "best-ofs" I've ever heard. I haven't heard the second disc for a good while now but I seem to remember the Thorns cover being really good

Siegbran's decriptions at the top of this thread are brutal. There's something to be said for all their albums - 'In The Wordless Chamber' is all-time

https://www.decibelmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/img-48.jpg

synthwave/metal label, Blood Music, was basically made off the back of the labels boss wanting to release an Emperor boxset.
it does look very impressive.
did anyone here grab it, as i believe they sold out rather quickly.

Siegbran's decriptions at the top of this thread are brutal.

Thanks, Siegbran.

Second album is still my favorite. I never totally warmed to the 3rd and 4th but they have some great stuff on them.

In general I dont have much use for criticisms like silly, ridiculous, pretentious etc. I think those things usually have to do with familiarity, comfort zones and preferences. They seem even more meaningless in the context of metal, goth and prog.

There's definitely something power metally and "heroic" about the vocals of the 2nd album onwards. Didn't like that initially but it makes sense now.

I think with a band like Emperor the whole silly/pretentious "we are really ancient wizards" thing was always there of course but to me the suspension of disbelief just worked better under the hazy/mysical blanket of Nightside and Anthems than under the clearer/sharper/riffier two albums afterwards, there it almost becomes Manowar-esque.

2021 Siegbran and 2003 Siegbran both 100% correct.

Siegbran - I thought you'd warmed on Anthems?

I can easily see why people might like Nightside best, in some ways I prefer it, but the energy on Anthems is just off the charts, one of the best rock albums I've ever heard.

Anthems is out there

Anthems is a good album, I just listened to it again. I used to hate the mix but it doesn't really bother me so much anymore (or maybe I just have better speakers now).

There's a lot of Nightside part 2 (such as The Loss And Curse Of Reverence which is still the album's high point I think), but there are quite a few really goofy and bad vocal parts (With Strength I Burn is the biggest offender here, even though the final three minutes where it gets mostly instrumental are great) and there's this emerging tendency to insert all these short guitar solo breaks into songs that don't really need them, that would get worse on the later albums.

What bits of the vocals do you perceive as "goofy"? The clean-sung vocals or the little spoken-word breakdown. I'm kind of tempted to say that metal is inherently goofy and that these parts are kidn of what makes it cool. That said, I should really go back to Nightside more

Well the clean vocals are mainly bad, the spoken word stuff is mostly goofy, but there's considerable overlap :)

That said I have less tolerance for the Cradle Of Filth/Arcturus school of community theatre than most.

I love Arcturus but some of their albums (Masquerade Infernale) had objectively terrible vocals on them

Setherial Nord is like the lost album between Nightside and Anthems.

― Siegbran, Monday, February 20, 2017 1:48 AM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Does sound like it, but I wish it was true of the songwriting.

I'm kind of tempted to say that metal is inherently goofy and that these parts are kidn of what makes it cool.

― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Friday, September 10, 2021 10:50 AM

Yeah the silliest and most embarrassing stuff in music is often what you end up loving most. It's like musicals being inherently embarrassing for me but that's what ends up making them feel freeing and a joy. FREEDOM!

Listening to Anthems always feels like a special occasion for me. Makes me feel like I could fly across the universe.

It was my intro to the genre so it's very hard for me to think of it in any critical way

Does sound like it, but I wish it was true of the songwriting.
― Nabozo
Most of those songs are three minutes too long yes but I have to say the repetition works and they bring some great riffs to the table, I’m still very fond of that record. I’m usually annoyed by such blatant copying of one specific band’s sound in literally every aspect, but for some reason it doesn’t bother me there.