ENSLAVED: Cavarans To The Outer Worlds (BLACK METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

We didn't think we would hear from Enslaved so quickly, barely a year after the release of "Utgard". Even less with a four track EP. The normalcy that is slowly returning after several months of chaos is conducive to creation and represents an opportunity for the Norwegians to refine their ever-changing music.

"Caravans To The Outer World" is built on two main tracks around which are interspersed two instrumental intermezzos. During these interludes, Enslaved draws from all their fundamentals but more in an impressionist way, using clay pencil to draw the perpetual heavy riff of 'Intermezzo II - The Navigator' and opalescent colors like the fog that adorns the cover of "Utgard" in 'Intermezzo I - Lönnlig Gudlig' (in homage to the late Entombed vocalist LG Petrov). Moreover, it is a cold draught that opens the record in 'Caravans To The Outer World', both black metal and folk, torn between fast developments and wide breaths of quietude. The folk component accompanies the whole liturgy of 'Ruun II - The Epitaph' whose strong vintage and mystical dimension echoes the ceremonial chants that install a heavy and solemn atmosphere.

With less than twenty minutes of music, it is difficult to judge "Caravans To The Outer World" and to draw any conclusion about its contribution in the Norwegian discography or about what it could initiate in the future. Apart from a few angry minutes in the first track, it is a rather wise Enslaved that is at work, a storyteller of ancestral myths that could nevertheless be a harbinger of dark outbursts. - Official website

ENSLAVED

CAVARANS TO THE OUTER WORLDS

NUCLEAR BLAST

BLACK METAL