Black metal has a (somewhat deserved) reputation for militant musical conservatism, with any deviation from form, however slight, meeting with derision from elitists. This stereotype persists even though the most visible and critically lauded bands are often the ones who buck conventions, whether the results succeed or not. (The embrace of Nachtmystium’s half-baked psychedelic black metal is a perfect example, as is any given Liturgy press cycle.) Norway’s Enslaved have coasted on that odd critical goodwill for some time now. While Enslaved’s early 2000s work showed how complex and multi-faceted black metal could be, 2008's Vertebrae tread a little too close to alternative rock, pointing to the danger in conflating black metal "evolution" with "accessibility." Their more recent albums have dug somewhat back into their black metal roots, but their fascination with other, less extreme forms rock never waned, and on In Times, their 13th album, it officially becomes become their crutch.
Enslaved remain capable performers -- the opener “Thurisaz Dreaming” is filled with prime Norwegian blasting and screeches--but the prog-rock sheen on the record, like they only focused on the softer side of Pink Floyd and Kansas, flattens out the fury. As a result, their raging and their simmering happen on the same wavelength. "Building With Fire" touches upon the band's more melodic work from Below the Lights and Isa, but other than that, there isn’t a whole lot differentiating one song from another, and many feel longer than they are.
A lot of this falls on Herbrand Larsen, who provides keyboards and clean vocals. His voice has an angelic pleasantness, serving as foil to bassist and lead vocalist Grutle Kjellson’s rasps, and sometimes it feels that’s all he’s there for. He holds back throughout, refusing to go all-out and overdrive the record. Parts that should feel grand, as a result, often feel bogged down and too comfortable. At the end of "Nauthir Bleeding", Kjellson and guitarists Arve Isdal and Ivar Bjørnson (who is a founding member along with Kjellson) rapidly intensify in attempting at reaching something glorious. Instead, Larsen neuters the song with soft-rock mewling, driven by some need to make it palatable, like he’s hosting a theoretical corpsepaint-and-cheese party.
Halfway through the title track, there’s a nearly poppy chorus of vocals that feels like it should liven the mood. It’s not a bad part in and of itself, as in the hands of a capable songwriter or producer—Devin Townsend’s pop-metal maximalism comes to mind—it could be incorporated successfully somewhere else. Here, it's just an odd fit among the dour seriousness surrounding it. Times is in need of "Havenless", their anthemic song from Lights, or at least something like it. It would break up the monotony here. Times isn’t offensively bad or controversial, and it might have benefitted from being either. Instead, we’ve got some Black Metal Muzak here, competent musically but too timid to go into the depths, emotional, musical or otherwise, that black metal should strive for.
