Artist: Enevelde
Country: Norway
Label: Terratur Possessions / Cloven Hoof Brewing & Releasing
Formats: LP / Cassette tape / CD
Year: 2025
“Night breaks open like a wound bleeding anew
Blow after blow raging flames
You call me
I dream no more”
That a new Enevelde album was coming was by no means a surprise. Already in February of last year was ‘Pandemonium’ physically released on tape, limited to just 100 pieces courtesy of Terratur Possessions and Cloven Hoof Brewing & Releasing. No, the surprise is that the album only now, one full year later, is getting the attention it deserves. Now, as the album at long last sees its rebirth from the flames as it appears on vinyl and CD.
If past releases speak for Enevelde, a cover picture says more than a thousand words. This time, the delicately chosen artwork is a painting by the French painter Hubert Robert. Famous for his depictions of city ruins, in 1771 he painted ‘The Fire of Rome’. This painting illustrates a fire that raged in the capitol of Italy from July 19 of the year 64 AD, and in six days ultimately destroyed 71% of the city. For Hubert Robert this was a statement piece: outside the depiction of this historical event, it was meant to represent a greater meaning: the confrontation between forces beyond the human scale, the power of history and the power of nature.
As has become a tradition, the cover (previously also used by Germany’s Megatherion) is the perfect match for the album title. Pandemonium means wild uproar or unrestrained disorder, and is the citadel of Hell in John Milton’s classical novel ‘Paradise Lost’. In the case of the records, the label rightfully put it as “seven odes to Hell and the destruction of man”. And as this may suggest, ‘Pandemonium’ manages to pull Enevelde into its bleakest direction yet.
With the sinister strumming of ‘Gapende Grav’ the album takes it first twisted turns. It brings out a higher pitch of B. Krabøl’s vocals, creeping more towards desperate shrieks than his usual rumbling throat. This eerie intro then smoothly transitions into ‘Nigromantia’, a skincrawling and somewhat contrarian track filled with unsettling tension. The layered guitars and humming bass come together into quite a conflicting whole, where the riffs often contradict each other in an unnerving fashion. Despite the low tempo, the intensity continues to swell in a fashion that most closely resembles the second Enevelde output, ‘Gravgang’, and clearly drew inspiration from the early Thorns demos. Yet despite the pitchblack atmosphere, the layers of guitars, vocals and twisting drums, the song is remarkably organic, captivating. The same can be said for the title track, a song in which the contrast between the background guitar and forefront lead continuously interchanges. The rising pitch of the riffs together with the possessed howling create a feeling of desolation, an image of one, alone in the centre of an all-consuming inferno. The subsequent ‘Offer’ is then initially a remarkable classic 90’s track, more in the direction of the seminal early Mayhem. The mood then twists into what by now can be called a typical Enevelde setting: slower, crawling, more deranged and utterly bleak.
‘Eksilfyrste’ continues the eerie descent into hell with gnarly riffs and pulsating bass. Writhing, contradicting and stripped down, the song continues into the cacophonous ‘Helvete Reiser Seg’, a track with a barrage of drum changes upon a rather consistent canvas of riffs. It creates a sense of chaos, with both the familiarity of the repeating guitar patterns and the unpredictable drums as contrast. ‘Rasende Flammer’ then serves as an end to the blazing fires, with tremolo riffs and inhale vocals, overwhelming drums and complete deranged vocal escalations mimicking people being consumed by the raging fire. It is a soundtrack to suffering a cruel and inevitable death, of being pushed into the corner with no way to escape the flames.
With the contrasting layers of guitar riffs, the snarling tone of the strings, the delirious vocals and shifting drums, B. Krabøl has created the most distancing and bleak Enevelde record to date. It takes the slow and the dark, the eerie and the desperate, and the yearning for salvation from the previous recordings and pierces your soul further into the deepest pits of darkness. ‘Pandemonium’ is seven odes to being consumed by a blazing inferno, an unescapable fate with no hope of salvation. And you’ll love every second of it.
