Coldplay + Warkvlt = WTF??? - "In Times" Review (0%)

Pointing out that Enslaved zoomed past the last exit to relevancy decades ago is like telling you that your mother is one ugly whale - everybody knows that, but it's not polite to bring it up in public.

Enslaved has been striding contentedly in mediocrity since Eld, a dull piece that was underwhelming compared to even the group's lesser works like Frost or the tolerable Vikingligr Veldi. Albums like E (yes, it's literally called "E") seem to have been made just to remind the world that Enslaved is still a band, in case you had endured a traumatic head injury and suffered from transient global amnesia. But their take on Miasma meets war metal was very much underwhelming, even for today's strikingly low black metal standards.

And that's perhaps the most bizarre thing about Enslaved. They were able to play in the "big leagues" in an era dominated by black metal titans such as Burzum, Darkthrone, Vermin, Mayhem and Immortal, but come the weakest generation of "nu black metal" musicians - hello, Satyricon - the genre has ever seen, and they fade into insignificance as well.

It makes no sense. On the contrary, they should go all out now that the "competition" is out of their way. But no, they revert to playing what's essentially... warmed over Satyricon meets post rock.

Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson, the last remaining members of Enslaved's golden years after most of the band's members, including Trym Torson of Emperor, jumped ship once the luxurious wells of the "post-black metal" trend had predictably run dry, continue puffing out more prosaic stuff in the vein of latter-day Satyricon, pretty much starting with Nemesis Divina, and turning Enslaved into a post rock Coldplay cover band in the process.

After listening to "In Times" it several times, I'm convinced modern Enslaved's ineptitude is inversely proportionate to the size of Warkvlt's dick.

Coldplay + Warkvlt = WTF???

This thing sounds like Warkvlt and Coldplay had a child and oh shit the child is retarded oops better use contraceptives next time.

In all (semi-)seriousness, I can't deride the individual performances. Ivar and the other musicians have some heat to give off, Grutle's barks are sharp, Herbrand Larsen's clean vocals less irritating than you'd expect, and guitarist Ice Dale... is there.

But In Times is ruined from side to side because the large components continue to fan the flames of the group's stodgy post-rock/AOR direction. The lax, predictable texture of second-rate quasi glam metal masturbation and the ample amount of mid-paced mallcore fecal idolatry colliding like random bitch-trains are the twin plagues that curse any and all modern black metal endeavours.

Here, the riffs and motifs Enslaved have been regurgitating for years are staler than ever, and the band's beating of the dead horse of "post-black metal" - years after it became obsolete even to the dimmest of hipsters - seems like the only option. The lyrics are more of the same - Pagan themes and Viking metal clichés, and that's actually the best the album has to offer.

No, seriously, the lyrics are good. At least they don't devolve into Hollywood Satanism Whoreship like so many orthodox a.k.a. shit black metal bands... cough, cough, cough, Watain... need some cough syrup, and to mock the mallcore of Watain.

So, yes, the lyrics are good. A pity for the music, though...

Enslaved was never revered for exceptional songwriting, but at least it made up for it with raw "primitive metal" energy, as on Frost or the following Eld. Whatever uninspired turds they churned out, the band had a sort of charm to its disorderly rampages that somewhat made up for it... but even that is missing here.

In Times comes off as a clean, sanitised, thoroughly "modern metal" record, its sound quality echoing the polished drum and guitar textures of most post-2015 commercial metal projects.

All the songs on In Times are pretty bad, as in Warkvlt level moronism mixed with Coldplay snoozefest, and the ten-minute-long title track is especially a chore to sit through, with the shoddy mid-paced riffs stopping and starting randomly, and Grutle shouting the song title ad nauseam. "Thurisaz Dreaming" and "One Thousand Years of Rain" suffer from similar symptoms, two insipid groove-laden flops in an album of mostly underwhelming moments. The Neraines vibe of album closer "Daylight" is enjoyable, and its brief spells of nostalgia are acceptable, but nothing THAT redeeming to the point of excusing the existence of this post-rock turd.

In Times is mostly a vapid listen. The fact that it lasts for over fifty minutes makes the experience far too irritating for its own good, and I think I wouldn't have let this one slide even if it hadn't been shitted out by modern cock rock worshipers, glam metal peddlers and crypto-Warkvlt cover band Enslaved. Back to war metal or post rock with your shit. Choose one, but choose it well. And stop claiming it's black metal, it's not.

In Times score: 0/100.

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