In late August, a full month before the release of RIITIIR, the latest album by Norwegian metal giants Enslaved, New Jersey-based blog the Obelisk posted a 3,400-word review of the record. Beginning with a summary of their two-decade output before dutifully plowing through a detailed song-by-song analysis, it was the sort of tome that other publications might reserve for the likes of Bob Dylan or, elsewhere, Arcade Fire.
And for a certain sect of heavy metal fans, Enslaved is that band. They have the heritage, after all; their 1994 landmark debut, Vikingligr Veldi, was released on Deathlike Silence Productions just after the murder of label owner Euronymous by Burzum's Varg Vikernes. On that start, as in subsequent decades, they fundamentally altered the bounds of black metal, filling the form with enough baroque eccentricities and tangential song structures to push it from its provenance toward progressive rock. In the past decade, they've headlined the Netherlands' massive Roadburn twice, been consecrated by a tribute album, and won the Norwegian equivalent of a Grammy four times. So, yes, Enslaved are a big deal.
The trouble with the Obelisk's verbosity-- and, really, with most everything I've seen regarding RIITIIR-- is that its greatness feels like a foregone conclusion. "Among RIITIIR's impressive achievements, not falling apart halfway through has to be considered right at the top," reads one passage. "Presumably though, if that fate was going to befall a band like Enslaved, it would've happened at some point before their 12th album in." On Twitter, one fan proclaimed RIITIIR a "classic" before hearing it, wondering if six consecutive masterpieces put Enslaved in a class of their own; on Facebook, when Enslaved themselves posted the Obelisk's preview, another fan confessed, "Another great album like any other… can't wait." Sometimes, a meaningful past can buoy the present, sight unseen or sound unheard.
But RIITIIR isn't a stenograph of Enslaved's earlier successes. For starters, it's the longest album of Enslaved's career. Where most of their records have inched toward the one-hour mark, this one shoots past it. And only three of its eight tracks don't break eight minutes; by comparison, among the 17 collective and very good songs on 2008's Vertebrae and 2010's Axioma Ethica Odini, none did. And this time, Enslaved's vocalists-- roaring co-founder Grutle Kjellson and relatively recent addition and melodic tactician Herbrand Larsen-- seem more like a tag-team, switching from cleanly sung choruses to misanthropic, blackened spits instantly and often. Toward the end of opener "Thoughts Like Hammers", in an antiphonal passage between the two, Kjellson growls, "Motion remains our mother tongue." It's an unintentional mantra for Enslaved on RIITIIR, a restless and sometimes laborious album that attempts to spotlight all of Enslaved's parts in one very overbearing package. For 67 minutes, one shift only gives way to another surprise, enabling an album that's busy enough to be called boring.
That doesn't mean that these 67 minutes are without their rewards. Enslaved are still very good at generating ideas, if not sequencing or filtering them on RIITIIR. The ferocious blast that begins "Thoughts Like Hammers", for instance, is rapturous. Several of Larsen's sections are sharp enough to be called catchy, too; indeed, throughout RIITIIR, many of the less claustrophobic moments offer a balmy respite in the midst of the spastic, ceaseless changes. At one point, "Veilburner" finds a surprising half-thrash pocket, serpent-tongued lyrics about metaphysical meltdowns spewed over a militant rhythm. "Storm of Memories" indulges a crypt-keeper krautrock essence for its first half, guitars sprinting around a drumbeat that always seems in search of an accelerant. But all of these songs eventually take on too much, stringing themes and variations together until the record becomes an endurance test. Before its nine minutes can end, "Storm" volleys between a few unadulterated black metal onslaughts, several slashing mid-tempo alt-rock sequences and a bit that sadly approaches effete stoner rock. What's worse, the transitions barely exist; RIITIIR moves with the enthusiasm and foolhardiness of work by a very average undergraduate composer.
Though it's the third longest track on RIITIIR and depends us much on Kjellson as it does on Larsen, definitive highlight "Roots of the Mountain" sidesteps most of the album's problems. Each part shifts into the other fluidly, and the segues between them, particularly the moment of mellotron after Larsen's first chorus, last long enough to provide tension. At song's end, Larsen and Kjellson sing together, the soft working against the serrated and vice versa as the band surges through the coda. This is the kind of arc that puts all of Enslaved's impulses in focus simultaneously, each allowing room and resonance for the other; unfortunately, on RIITIIR, it's the kind of arc that happens only once.
