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Enthroned > Towards the Skullthrone of Satan > Reviews
Enthroned - Towards the Skullthrone of Satan

An underrated black metal classic of all time - 95%

VergerusTheSargonian, March 16th, 2024

If you think of classic black metal bands and releases, your mind surely goes to Mayhem, Darkthrone, Satyricon, or Dissection, even Marduk or Dark Funeral, but I believe that there are a lot of underrated acts and efforts that fall in the same category, and they are all influential and legendary on their own! Early Enthroned, from Belgium, are without doubt one of those legendary bands that were able to record cult-status albums, in a certain way as important as other well known releases from acclaimed projects and scenes. They used to have a quite unique set of characteristics: a very fast-paced breed of black metal, but highly melodic, maybe even more than, let's say, Swedish black metal! Very epic, fascinating, and in a first instance, speaking of their debut album, slightly symphonic. That first effort was way ahead of its time: powerful but not over-produced music, with lyrical themes switching in an apparently random manner between satanism and paganism, even presenting both inside the same song!

I would like to highlight that this band, among others, used to present itself via a combination of Christophe Szpajdel's logo and Kris Verwimp's front cover illustration: it was, at the time, an assurance of quality and instant classic legendary status for the release. And, I can guarantee, first two Enthroned's works, or, following the same criteria of evaluation, first two Cirith Gorgor's releases, are all worthy of the highest status among all black metal release of the period and I dare to say, of the black metal genre as a whole. After a really sad tragedy regarding the former Enthroned's drummer Cernunnos, the band entered the recording studio, with all the rhythmic scripts already written and ready to be performed by a valid session musician behind the drum kit: thus a legend was born! Leaving apart the pagan themes, and focusing on a more blasphemous, but well conceived and never stupidly portrayed satanism, the band also suppressed the early symphonic hints here and there, and the result was a straight forward, frenetic black metal, but really not alike the Swedish style: an interpretation of the genre on its own!

Memorable riffs all time long, in every single song, with the peak of "Evil Church", which is a hymn for the entire genre along with, for example, "Inno a Satana" from Emperor, "Freezing Moon" from Mayhem or "Mother North" from Satyricon. Production wise there's a more raw approach, and even a less powerful general sound quality than the 1995's debut: it is not a flaw or a real step backwards, it's simply a choice in order to achieve a more feral atmosphere! Apart from the aforementioned excellent melodic riffs, blast-beats are full of tasteful accented notes, using various kinds of cymbals, and wide, wonderful drum-fills using a large range of tom-drums with various diameters. But, really, what stands of from this band's earliest recordings, is the creaming vocals performed by Lord Sabathan, also on the bass guitar duties. Very high-pitched, raspy, but never laughable or parodistic: the shrieks are always utterly evil sounding, cruel and malefic. Lord Sabathan's vocal style is unique and recognizable among thousands and thousands of generic black metal screamers. I dare to say that he is one of the best black metal vocalist of all time!

It's quite all I want to say about this amazing release from the golden-age of the band: please consider that we have 45 minutes long record with no fillers, no weak moments, no flaws: a full set of epic songs, seamlessly presented with no time to breathe! After the EP "Regie Sathanas - A Tribute to Cernunnos", which was in the same vein and style of this full-length, so, again, epic stuff done the right way, the band shifted into a more straight, punchy, generically crafted Swedish sounding black metal assault. A lot of the grim but epic atmosphere was lost, putting on the forefront the less fascinating brutal attitude shared with countless other bands of the period. Maybe the legacy of Cernunnos was forgotten by those who tried to continue the project, and even Lord Sabathan, at a certain point, left the band, so the classic Enthroned line-up and style seems lost forever. Nowadays, Nornagest, firstly appeared in the band from this second album, is doing a great job, but basically, we are talking about a different band!

Rushing through narrow corridors - 76%

Felix 1666, April 10th, 2016

Enthroned had entered the scene in an impressive manner with their debut. The title of their second album was promising as well, while the cover artwork was negligible. But despite this puerile vision of hell, I could not wait to listen to the album.

With regard to its visual appearance, it goes without saying that "Towards the Skullthrone of Satan" delivers pure black metal. The band has not seen a reason to modify its style significantly. High velocity overruns the listener as soon as the intro fades away. "The Ultimate Hordes Fight" and "Ha Shaitan" take no prisoners, but the leads are at risk to be sidelined by the blast beats of the snare. Not least because of the slightly blurred sound, I am not sure whether they have found the perfect balance between high speed and merciless heaviness or occult elements. Don't get me wrong, the aforementioned tracks are explosive and do not suffer from serious deficiencies. They show the energetic approach of the band in an uncompromising manner. The only problem is that they do not score with an overdose of charisma or identity. "Evil Church" shows them how it works. The track is extremely fast, but its high pace is not at the expense of clarity and structure. Irrespective of its velocity, it impresses with its melodic break. A keyboard provides a contrast to the hailstorm of the guitars and Enthroned create a truly diabolic part, while the lyrics describe a bloody ritual. The melody line strongly reminds me of that of "Under the Holocaust" from their debut, but that's no big deal. Bolt Thrower also have the permission to use one of their riffs again and again. No doubt, "Evil Church" is a bright shining star on the menacingly dark firmament over the barren realm of black metal. (Please excuse me for my affinity for metaphorical nonsense.)

The great number of high velocity tracks and the absence of catchy choruses make it difficult to get an overview of "Towards the Skullthrone of Satan". The patterns of the songs are relatively similar to each other and the permanent nagging of Lord Sabathon delivers a great portion of hatred, but it does not help to increase the level of diversity. Consequently, the album lacks - unlike the debut - a bit of accessibility. Despite my weakness for unrelenting velocity, I must notice that it would have been a good idea to integrate a higher number of less rapid sections. The strong ending of "Dusk of the Forgotten Darkness" demonstrates that the three-piece is able to generate a demonic aura while performing mid-paced parts. Anyway, Enthroned must be praised for their pure dedication and for the fact that no song falls through the cracks. Yet it is also true that, with the exception of "Evil Church", no song is able to distinguish itself from the inferno. The riffs and leads score with aggressiveness, compactness and unfriendliness. They are the driving force behind the songs and make clear that Enthroned enjoy the heat of the blazing flame of black metal. When taking the tunes out of context, nearly each and every piece develops its misanthropy and scorn successfully. But mysteriously, the album is one of the rare outputs whose whole is less than the sum of its parts. I have never understood mathematics.

"Towards the Skullthrone of Satan" celebrates a feast for black metal fanatics who don't need images of dark Swedish forests or icy Norwegian landscapes before the inner eye. Although the full-length can be compared with some of the most rapid outputs of the Scandinavian scene, it demonstrates a more autonomous approach than its predecessor. The reason for this is the pure adoration of the sulphurous ruler of hell that doesn't refer to Northern Gods or imaginative kingdoms (greetings to Blashyrkh, even though Abbath is temporarily not available). Enthroned have started to liberate themselves from the Nordic role models, although the compositions of their second work don't explore previously unknown regions. Just too bad that the good album is not on a par with the extremely strong "Prophecies of Pagan Fire".

Entertaining and competant crap. - 40%

doomknocker, February 24th, 2010

The meteoric rise of black metal was sure to spawn imitators and second-class bands, not unlike the tidal wave of Bay Area thrashdom some ten years before. Countries with little-to-no chronicled Viking and Nordic heritage, from England to Germany to Japan, gave forth their own brands of militant musical Satanism with dire hopes of rubbing elbows aplenty with their older, corpse-painted peers. Some succeeded, some fell flat on their faces, but all in all the fires of black metal spread like a cheapening plague, where any piss-head guitar player and raspy evil-doer can call forth the infernal spirits for their own gain versus any real wickedness.

Case in point…ENTHRONED.

Calling ENTHRONED’s take on black metal unoriginal and derivative smacks of truthiness. But is it all bad? Not necessarily. These Belgian troublemakers blast their evil li’l hearts out with layers of grime-ridden, blast-beaty metal that’s energetic and quite ear-pleasing. Speed and frenzy are the order of the day in the ENTHRONED camp, where gatling-gun blast beats, acidic croaks and shredding guitar work come to die. The general assembly of these tracks shows definitive skill and ability performance-wise. But the pisser is that each little musical trek of theirs doesn’t include any cohesively original ideas. Elements of MARDUK, shades of SETHERIAL and moments of faster GORGOROTH are present, from the compositional factor to the end-all delivery. Not really evoking the wicked, frightening concept of an endless Hell, but rather this showcases a bunch of angry kids spewing Satanic rhetoric with only a little bit of an idea of what they’re talking about. Sadly there aren’t a few moments when the band is truly on, but they come pretty damn close with the likes of “The Ultimate Horde Fights“, “The Antichrist Summons the Black Flame” and “Hertogenwald” (which incorporates a necessary(?) performance from VENOM front-dude Cronos, who still can’t save the track wholly).

So in the end, “Towards the Skullthrone of Satan” is a fun little romp, but, unfortunately to ENTHRONED, isn’t a necessary black metal album. You can do worse, but you can also do far, far better.

EVIL CHURCH ! ! - 93%

CHRISTI_NS_ANITY8, February 19th, 2008

Sometimes destiny is weird, or even bad because a band like Enthroned deserved more attention…for sure. After the very good debut, they release in 1997 this excellent “Towards The Skullthrone Of Satan” that is definitely faster and more evil than the album before.

The production is quite raw but exalts the guitar sound, always brutal, cold and truly evil. The drums are fast and raw in the snare-bass drum sound. “The Ultimate Horde Fights” is on blast beats with the screamed vocals typical by Sabathan.

Well, the main Enthroned characteristic is to mix in a perfect way obscure guitar lines with fast tempo, so we can find more “mid paced” parts where the true satanic soul is expressed through bestial, malevolent lead guitars lines. “Ha Shaitan” is great and check out the satanic melody from the guitars, especially during the mid paced part. The hyper speed restart part in this song is something unbelievable…

“Evil Church” is my favourite one here. A track to worship, admire, love…rarely Enthroned expressed themselves in these levels. The track is perfectly balanced between obscure melodies and black metal massacres. The refrain is a piece of history of this genre. A small gem. “The Antichrist Summons The Black flame” and “The Forest Of Nathrath” are again a perfect mixture of black metal assault parts with lots of tempo changes and dark melodies. Fucking great.

Listen to the great black melodies to “Throne To Purgatory” or to the gloomy beginning of “When The Horny Flames…”, this one with excellent solos breaks. Really, this is the very first, in my opinion, Enthroned great work. I believe it’s better than the debut, especially for the guitar song writing and for the burden of fury and Satanism.

An album to admire in black metal. Back to the roots of evil with Enthroned.

Towards perfection - 79%

lord_weballergy, August 15th, 2006

I had to write a review for this album, as this is one of the greatest black metal releases I have heard. It has it's own atmosphere built in a solid way of playing black metal with feelings that you won't find in any other band, that's for sure.

Why 79?
Songs may sound like eachother.
I'd like to listen to more (yes, more) guitar solos.

Enthroned is known for it's guitar solos, they are not common among black metal bands, and that's why enthroned is unique. The melodies they create have such a nostalgic and sad feeling, it remembers me of childhood and sometimes, of my relationships with girls. Yes, it may sound weird, but anyway, the songs are not romantic. hahaha. If you take a good listen to this album and then listen to trance music, you will find similarities. That's for sure.

This album:

-Has 11 tracks (9 songs if you ignore the intro and outro), they are in nice order and even being different, the songs always will remind you of the previous song. There are some sections where they play at the same tempo, same drumming, they change the guitar lines, and this is a problem. I mean, they play the base guitar 2 times, and then, the solo. This happens more than 2 times on the album.

-Explores the vocals very well. Some people say that Enthroned screamer is annoying and sucks a lot. But I don't think it's like that. It's another point to say that Enthroned is a unique band. The vocals are raw, cruel and sad. It's really raw, it seems that they took away all the low frequencies from the vocals for it to sound more harsh. But anyway, they didn't, their screamer is great.

-Has feelings that you can't find in other bands. As I said before, they bring different stuff to my mind. It may be different with you.

Highlights:
Evil Church. This song sends shivers down my spine.
All the other songs with solos. Great solos, great feeling.

Anyway, if you are into black metal for a long time but you don't have an open mind, I tell you to be careful and don't put a lot of expectation in this album as it may not sound as you are used to. If you have an open mind, I tottaly recomend this album, it will be a different experience and then you will discover what is so great about Enthroned.

the ultimate horde fights - 89%

vorth, October 19th, 2004

Before I bought this one, I hadn't heard much of Enthroned, and I know now that separated tracks from different albums are not really representative, at least for Enthroned. What's the difference? I have really thought that Enthroned is just another copy of Marduk plus guitar solos. But Enthroned is much more than just "berserk" drums and quickly "spitted" growl (satan, satan, satan and so on). Actually, so fast drums are rather often than usual, because in every song there are few slower moments. Also, lyrics are much more thoughtfully written. But what makes Enthroned so original is that the album is full of electronical intros/outros, sometimes you may heard acoustics or woman (I guess, "Hertogenwald") singing, keyboards are also common. This makes "Towrads the Skullthrone of Satan" various and different.

However, if you look for speed and blasphemy, don't worry - Enthroned is still based on style that swedish BM is known of. One thing that is not good in Enthroned are the vocals - but they are at leasts not annoying, like those in Absu (actually, Proscriptor sounds very similar to Sabathan). Each track sounds different, there are no "genious" ones and no bad ones, just good BM with in very interesting style. "Dusk of Forgotten Darkness", "Evil Church" and "Hertogenwald" would be the best on the album, but every one is really worth listening.

Very good - go and buy!