Search - Emperor :: Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk (Spec) (Dig)

Almost as vast as the sky

Andreas Faust | Tasmanian Autonomous Zone | 12/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"So much work went into this album, and it paid off tenfold. What stands out most is the incredible guitar work - one minute the guitars are crushing your skull with their sheer weight, the next they're flying off into the beyond, before returning to the scene of the crime, a hundred times more bloody, more brutal.



Transcendental and yet burning with aggression...it is seldom one hears these ingredients combined to form such a powerful and empowering whole. Even though the music is deadly fast you almost seem to float through it, or rather it washes over you like an immense wave.



With 'Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk', Emperor went beyond the parochial concerns of much black metal, into a new aeonic awareness. 'The Acclamation of Bonds' even has a 'positive' theme, speaking highly of "the bonds of trust and unity", but while honour and kinship are hailed, the dominant theme is still that of the strong individual, the wanderer who walks among his or her own kind as a wolf among sheep, and who seeks solace in the high and lonely places rather than suffocating amidst the masses.



'Welkin' is an archaic English word for sky, and this album is almost as vast. It is the work of a mature and powerful band, who had fully realised their compositional skills and knew exactly what they were capable of. If you listen to it as background music this may not be apparent, but a deep meditation on it can merge your mind with Eternity itself."