Emperor : Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk

Emperor is back again, following their masterpeice "In The Nightside Eclipse". They have suffered some line-up changes though, bringing in a new bassist and a new drummer after Faust was convicted of murder and sent to jail for 7 years. But it worked out pretty well considering they replaced him with Trym, who is (besides Hellhammer) the best Black Metal drummer out there. So with the new line-up and album, lets see what they can do.

The album begins with "Alsvartr (The Oath)" which is a nice clean guitar intro that graduates into a symphonic march that gives a great lead in to the album as a whole. Then in an instant,
Trym blasts the intro to "Ye Entrancemperium" and the carnage begins. The album is fairly well produced, with a lot of vocals and guitar. They seemed to of bagged the garage feel and the keyboards are barely heard over the pounding drums and guitar, this album is way more "in your face" than nightside was, making it a little overwelming.

But with all the stuff that is going on at once, it is amazing to hear. They seemed to have upped the complexity of their music, adding clean vocals and speaches to their music, giving it a sense of purpose. The intro to "Thus Spake The Nightspirit" shows trumpet like keyboards and pounding drums (giving the thought of an army ready for battle) and "The Loss And Curse Of Reverence", which is possibly the best song on the album, blazes though your speakers yielding a high screech of guitars and vocals. Emperor has followed up with a well put together album that gives you everything you want from a band like this. They are making their mark, and doing it very well and effectively.
 
And hell, the cd even comes with a video for "The Loss And Curse Of Reverence" which gives a nice visual for the music, so at least buy it for that.

                                                Overall score: 90/100 !
Reviewed by Brian