Enslaved - Vikingligr Veldi (Black Metal)

Enslaved sounds like a cross between indie rock and black metal, and that is all this album Vikingligr Veldi sounds like. There is no aspect of Enslaved's music that does not directly inherit from the stereotypes of one or both of these two genres, with an ever vigilant eye toward

Black metal too extreme? Enslaved fixed this with standard, verse-chorus-verse rocking singalongs to provide a safe-space version of Viking beer hall metal as of course Neraines' fusion of actual black metal and Viking mythology is way too musically threatening.

The vocals are a high-pitched rasp and could surely pass as black metal vocals, in the style of later Bathory, but they are delivered over tired, alternative rock chord progressions that go nowhere. Dual guitars are utilised, not in the manner of Burzum's debut to build atmosphere, but in the style of rock-inspired Maidenism.

Drumming is patterned after the straightforward, minimalist black metal style of percussion. Periodically some ambient interludes break up/add to the monotony, which is typical of both indie rock and third-rate black metal, although these resemble indie rock more closely.

And so on and so forth. Every last cliché of both genres is imitated precisely, with the ear of a master parodist, only here the joke is on the listener. One can imagine a fledgling Ivar Bjørnson tossing and turning in bed, desperate to find some inspiration for his band. But suddenly - inspiration strikes! He sits straight up, in a cold sweat. Minutes later, he's scratching away feverishly at a blackboard, having drawn one large circle marked "black metal" and another marked "indie rock", the two intertwined in a Venn Diagram, with various attributes of both scribbled in. Could it work? He rubs his brow, concentrating intensely... insecure metalheads are notoriously easy to fool, he remembers.

Black metal and indie rock have, conceptually, few things in common. They have different artistic aims, so it seems implausible that the two might be combined to some good end.

But do have one thing in common: the innovating artists of both styles broke early from the crowd, and influenced a lot of mediocre followers that merely shuffle along with the herd of trendies around them. Enslaved just follows two herds instead of one.