''Utgard'' is the fifteenth studio album by Norwegian extreme metal band Enslaved, released 2 October 2020 by

Nuclear Blast Nuclear Blast is a record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label mov ...

Background

''Utgard'' is the first Enslaved album with new drummer Iver Sandøy, who had previously co-produced several of the band's albums and joined full-time following the departure of longtime drummer Cato Bekkevold in 2018. The album was originally scheduled for release in early 2020, but was delayed until October of that year due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. The album is titled after a

location In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...

in Norse mythology and includes some Norse lyrics and song titles. A video, filmed in Iceland, was released for the song "Jettegryta". ''Utgard'' continues to display some of the band's early

black metal Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw (lo-fi) recording, unconventional song structures, and an emp ...

roots while continuing their experimentation with 1970s

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...

Critical reception

The album received mostly positive reviews upon its release. ''

Kerrang! ''Kerrang!'' is a British weekly magazine devoted to rock, punk and heavy metal music, currently published by Wasted Talent (the same company that owns electronic music publication ''Mixmag''). It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a one- ...

'' noted that "Enslaved take the listener through a frightening landscape in Norse mythology where the gods have no control and chaos reigns" and called the band "masters" and "elder statesmen" of progressive black metal. '' Blabbermouth'' noted that the album "feels like the true culmination of Enslaved's ascendancy to the throne of modern prog-metal wizardry." The ''Prog'' division of

Loudersound ''Metal Hammer'' is a heavy metal music magazine and website founded in 1983, published in the United Kingdom by Future, with other language editions available in numerous other countries. ''Metal Hammer'' features news, reviews and long-form a ...

concluded that ''Utgard'' is the ultimate result of musical experiments that the band had been conducting over their past several albums. In the words of ''Antihero'', "Enslaved deliver their elite brand of Prog/Extreme Metal that they have so meticulously hammered out over the past three decades." ''

Metal Hammer ''Metal Hammer'' is a heavy metal music magazine and website founded in 1983, published in the United Kingdom by Future, with other language editions available in numerous other countries. ''Metal Hammer'' features news, reviews and long-form ...

'' named it as the 9th best metal album of 2020.

Track listing

Personnel

Ivar Bjørnson Ivar Skontorp Peersen, best known by his stage name Ivar Bjørnson (born 27 November 1977 in Etne), is a Norwegian composer/guitarist for the progressive black/viking metal band Enslaved. Biography Bjørnson is, along with Grutle Kjellson, ...

– electric guitars, acoustic guitars, synthesizers, keyboards, sequencer, FX, backing vocals (track 1) * Grutle Kjellson – vocals, bass, synthesizer *Iver Sandøy – vocals, drums, percussion, keyboards, FX *Håkon Vinje – keyboards, piano, vocals * Arve Isdal – electric guitars, acoustic guitars, backing vocals (track 1) Additional personnel: * Martin "Bellhammer" Horntveth – percussion, synthesizers, glockenspiel, tubular bells, rototoms, programming (track 3) * Inger Sunneva Peersen, Sonja Elisabeth Peersen – backing vocals (track 9)

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2020 albums Enslaved (band) albums Nuclear Blast albums Albums postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic