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

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.