Review: Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini
Saturday, October 9, 2010 at 11:47AM 
The storied history of black metal contains many characters, yet few deserve the recognition and respect reserved for Enslaved. Crawling from Norway's primordial ooze in the early 90s along with black metal stalwarts Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum, Emperor, and Immortal, Enslaved not only helped defined a genre, but evaded the trappings of instability that have plagued most of black metal's founders. Instead, Enslaved has quietly continued along its upward trajectory, producing genre-bending albums one after another.Yet rather than headlining world tours to adoring, sold out crowds (ala Immortal), Enslaved gets relegated to a support slot for the Dimmu Borgir, the same Dimmu Borgir fighting in the dregs of the Hot Topic mallcore scene for the attention of ICP, Distrubed, and Slipknot fans. The same Dimmu Borgir who just finished a European tour in the support slot for nu-metal posterboys Korn.
That said, Axioma Ehtica Odini stands as a monument to Enslaved's monumental career. It has refined the best aspects of post-below the lights era Enslaved and infused it with the icy rawness found on Eld and Frost. If anything, the album is a testament to songwriting, something that, unfortunatly, finds itself too often buried beneath speed, virtuosity, and riffs. Mind you, I don't mean song writing in the conventional, formulaic sense (think Amon Amarth). Rather, the album is the epitome of what songwriting should be, the creative melding of styles, emotional ebbs and flows, and the careful structuring of musical layers in ways which often defy convention. Despite Enslaved's radical and divergent influences nothing ever feels forced or out of place, as if psychedelic rock and black metal (among other things) were made for each other. Its musical synergy of the highest order.
The album begins with the steady rolling of waves, as a ship approaches the shore before racing into the memorable and gripping "Ethica Odini." Despite the song's simplicity its mid-paced main riff gallops along at a perfect headbanging pace (this song is after all, one of Enslaved's most headbang worthy songs), before breaking into a chorus featuring the clean vocal lines that made vertebrae such a masterpiece and abound throughout the album. The highlight of the song has to be the bridge. Enslaved has mastered the art of builds, abandoning typical build clichés (snare/tom rolls, scale progressions) in favor of brilliant and innovative song structures. The vocals soar, and the guitar solo borrows from some of psychedelic rock's finest.
The album plays for close to an hour (58:27), yet the album never grows old or tiring. The offerings are diverse, and the album, as it should, plays like an album. "Axioma" like a built in album flip, splits the album in half, featuring a slow, haunting keyboard wash before kicking into the second half of the album.
Axioma Ethica Odini is becoming one of my favorite albums from one of my favorite bands. It represents so well the career of such a storied black metal band, and sets the benchmark for black metal innovators everywhere.
Final Score: 94/100
Mention this review and receive Enslaved's "Axioma Ethica Odini" for $13.50 (originally priced at $15.99)
-Mike Lang
Axioma Ethica Odini, Enslaved, Review
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