This page is quickly becoming an “Oops! I did it again” of metal bands I never followed when they initially made their mark, innit? For the record, I listen to a lot, okay? Just not everything. And apparently not enough Enthroned who has crafted this dense opus of vicious beauty with Cold Black Suns which is the Belgium Black metallers’ first in almost five years.
But I digress.
Standing tall with Back Metal contemporaries like Rotting Christ or alongside sonic landscape pioneers Raum Kingdom, Cold Black Suns is an exciting new chapter for Enthroned that’ll take listeners on an aural journey filled with devastation and delight.
“Ophiusa” is sinister and macabre and ethereal as it builds and builds acting more like a new jam from Isis or Pelican than something from these Black Metal progenitors. That said, “Hosanna Satana” goes in the opposite direction with a blast beat-fueled ditty of fast fury until “Oneiros” brings us back to that complex side that makes Enthroned so compelling as this subtle bleakness envelopes all then explodes in a vibrant yet oddly triumphant resonance with Melthor’s drumming in particular here, and throughout Cold Black Suns, sounding exquisitely cavernous.
“Vapula Omega” is filled with concise bludgeoning guitar attacks from Shagal and Neraath with those drum tones once again sounding so huge while “Silent Redemption” is anything but as this riff-fueled behemoth changes time signatures as quickly as it changes moods going from Prog to Black Metal to Doom in a heartbeat. “Aghoria” is concentrated chaos before becoming a mythical hymnal and “Smoking Mirror” is the penultimate beast and the first of two sprawling opuses displaying Enthroned’s penchant for crafting epic, yet bleak, dirges.
Cold Black Suns is out through Season of Mist on June 7th. You can pre-order your copy now by clicking here or here and head here to find out all the latest on the band, including upcoming live dates.