Utgard | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 2 October 2020 | |||
Recorded | 2019 | |||
Genre | Progressive black metal | |||
Length | 44:46 | |||
Label | Nuclear Blast | |||
Producer | Iver Sandøy, Ivar Bjørnson, Grutle Kjellson | |||
Enslaved chronology | ||||
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Utgard is the fifteenth studio album by Norwegian extreme metal band Enslaved, released 2 October 2020 by Nuclear Blast. [1]
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. [2] The album was originally scheduled for release in early 2020, but was delayed until October of that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [3] [4]
The album is titled after a location in Norse mythology [5] and includes some Norse lyrics and song titles. [6] A video, filmed in Iceland, was released for the song "Jettegryta". [6] Utgard continues to display some of the band's early black metal roots while continuing their experimentation with 1970s progressive rock. [6]
The album received mostly positive reviews upon its release. Kerrang! 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. [7] Blabbermouth noted that the album "feels like the true culmination of Enslaved's ascendancy to the throne of modern prog-metal wizardry." [5] The Prog division of Loudersound concluded that Utgard is the ultimate result of musical experiments that the band had been conducting over their past several albums. [8] 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." [9] Metal Hammer named it as the 9th best metal album of 2020. [10]
All tracks are written by Ivar Bjørnson (under the name I. Peersen); except tracks 1, 4, 6, 7 with lyrics by Grutle Kjellson (under the name K. Grutle).
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Fires in the Dark" | 6:00 |
2. | "Jettegryta" | 4:56 |
3. | "Sequence" | 6:39 |
4. | "Homebound" | 5:30 |
5. | "Útgarðr" | 1:51 |
6. | "Urjotun" | 4:21 |
7. | "Flight of Thought and Memory" | 6:22 |
8. | "Storms of Utgard" | 4:38 |
9. | "Distant Seasons" | 4:31 |
Total length: | 44:46 |
Additional personnel:
Chart (2020) | Peak position |
---|---|
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) [11] | 59 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [12] | 162 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) [13] | 59 |
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista) [14] | 42 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [15] | 30 |
Scottish Albums (OCC) [16] | 48 |