Enslaved - Vikingligr Veldi (1994)

During the course of the past twenty years, Norway's Enslaved has gone through a myriad of changes both in sound and musician membership and largely I've thought that as the years have gone by the music has suffered at times too. However the bands early releases, '92's, 'Yggdrasill' demo, '93's, 'Hordanes Land' EP and especially their masterful debut from '94, 'Vikingligr Veldi' are beyond exceptional (I've got quite a bit of love for their following album, 'Frost' as well).

Wrote between '92/'93 and recorded in '93/'94 by Pytten, the bands debut, 'Vikingligr Veldi' has been often confused as being a self titled release due to the fact that the title is no where to be found on the cover or spine of the album, and only the words, 'Enslaved' & 'Anti Mosh 008' are present.

Vikingligr Veldi is in my opinion one of the most underrated releases in the early Norwegian black metal scene and this could be largely because the album wasn't re-released until 2004 with the only other copies available out there being the original DSP/Voices of Wonder release (which I own). It could also be because the band fancied lyrically themes around Norse Mythology instead of the typical evil stuff most bands were spitting out at the time, but whatever the case may be this album has always deserved more recognition.

Most folks have always viewed Enslaved as a viking metal band even if the lyrics are different I've always thought of this album as a black metal album since the band didn't fully embrace and start to experiment with clean vocals, progressive characteristics, slower playing speeds and a cleaner production job until the following album and a few years down the road from there.

It's key to point out that the members of the band were young when this was recorded, guitarist/keyboardist Ivar was just 15, bassist/vocalist Grutle was 21 and drummer Trym probably somewhere between those two in age. Of course many Norwegian black metal musicians were young, but I should also point out that it was 15 year old Ivar that wrote all of the music and lyrics for this debut.

But, enough with these random factoids.

Although at first this album may seem like a somewhat typical Norwegian black metal album with fast double bass drum work, repetitive tremolo picked guitar riffs and raspy screams/growls, underneath all of the chaos you'll soon take notice of the absolutely unique sounding keyboards which hold an odd cosmic haunting sort of swirling effect unlike anything that was being created at the time. Two of the songs also feature some sort of brass instruments, which may very well be synthetic, but they surely do sound authentic to my ears and again add a unique and majestic sort of tone to these songs. Grutle's bass work is also fairly audible and excellent in its delivery too, which is something you just didn't see in these days.

Although Ivar's guitar work is repetitive most of the time there are still plenty of melodic riffs to be found and while songs like, 'Vetrarnótt' & 'Heimdallr' mostly move at blindingly fast paces or songs like, 'Lifandi Liv Undir Hamri & Midgards Eldar' show the band slowly and epically building up there black metal sound. The instrumental, 'Norvegr' is interesting as well since it remains at the same pace for its entire ten minute duration, but never once does it get boring. Ivar's keyboard work is as I already said unique, but there are times where it sounds a little hooky, but I'm sure you'll forgive them for not being able to get hold of the most state of thee art equipment available.

I also really enjoy the icy cold feeling the whole album gives off. Seriously this is an album to stick in your car while driving around during a snow storm or one to take into the forest with you while hiking, but if you don't fancy either of those choices you can always just sit in your living room and allow the music to chill you to the bone.

Lastly I have to point out that the production is a bit above average for releases at the time as the guitars don't really have that buzzing chainsaw effect, the bass is present, the drums are loud and vibrant and there isn't any ridiculous uncontrolled reverb here either. Though this is black metal music all the way so its not as if things are perfect by any means, but it works, it works well.

Its been almost seventeen years since this albums release and in my opinion it still is an absolute one of a kind and as I've already said horribly underrated release. I find the entire thing hard to put into written form because its so massive, but if you've longed to hear a truly mesmerizing piece of music and a classic within the black metal genre then look no further than this one right here.