Soulblight

1997's Witchcraft is a challenging album to follow up with its cult status as one of the greatest black metal releases owing to its complex compositions and intricate orchestration. Yet Obtained Enslavement have done it, as Soulblight is a very different release but it maintains the quality and musicianship the band made themselves known for with Witchcraft. This release discards the openness and mystique of the orchestral arrangements in place of a more guitar and drum-oriented sound, but this works for the much darker and aggressive tone of Soulblight.

The structure of the album is a highlight compared to its predecessor as it feels more conceptual and complete as a whole, rather than just a collection of songs. This makes sense as the lyrics tell an epic tale of a great war against the 'soulblight', a story that can be followed through the music itself too, thus making it a conceptual album in many ways. The first third of the album sets the scene and following the dark and chilling intro track 'A Black Odyssey', songs like 'Dark Night of the Souls' or the title track describe the horrors of the soulblight. This is followed up by the middle section that takes a step back to explore the more magical and mystical side of the story with spoken word sections on 'Nightbreed' or the eerie and chilling clean guitar arpeggios of 'Voice from a Starless Domain'. These tracks maintain the intensity of the first third but provide a more open and mysterious sound although it is sorrowful and eerie rather than magical like in Witchcraft. The album builds to a climax with the final two tracks, especially the closer 'Charge', an epic conclusion to this great battle with one of the most beautiful middle sections I've ever heard in a metal song, featuring additional vocals provided by bassist 'T Reaper' and guest 'Ares', which is a unique touch especially as the death metal growls feel like a subtle callback to the band's origins from their grimier death metal demo era. This song also features the first guitar solo of the band's discography and yet it feels perfectly placed with its intensity matching the story's climax and feels like an instrumental equivalent to the peak of a battle.

Speaking of instrumental work, the iconic and untouchable classically influenced composition (it would be insulting to call it songwriting) of guitarists 'Heks' and 'D∅den', with its weaving and developed melodies to the complex chord sequences and intricate structures, is still an aspect that is so unique to this band; the composers truly have a great understanding of music in its high-art form. The performances delivered by the band are done with terrifying precision and clarity, unusual for the genre where commonly a 'that will do' attitude is employed; nowhere on this album can you hear sloppiness of any kind. Pest's vocals are consistent and hair-raising, nothing about it sounds human and this works in favour of this otherworldly suite.

Even though the production is almost perfect, a little more bass would help as the unique contrapuntal basslines on Witchcraft are almost completely absent from this album. In addition to this, at points, the drumming is too high in the mix and can drown out the guitar work; the harmonic structures are still present but the nuances of the melodies are lost. Despite these small issues, Pytten has once again cemented himself as one of the greats in the black metal world and even just knowing this album was recorded in the infamous Grieghallen, adds to its grandeur and appeal.

To conclude, Soulblight is a worthy contender for one of the best black metal albums of the 90s, and its minor production issues are massively outweighed by the sheer quality of the music. The world will likely never again see 2 black metal albums as perfect as Soulblight and Witchcraft, evil in its intent yet majestic and epic in its final form.

Obtained Enslavement's Soulblight is their fifth release and first release on Napalm records. The album starts off with a nice build-up intro titled, "A Black Odyssey", as the track ends a drum fill and all hell breaks loose with Pest screeching along to the shredding guitars and sorrow-filled keyboard melody. You can immediately tell that this album is not as classically oriented, yet the guitar and drum work is much more complex and is the main focus of the album (instead of Witchcraft's classical mastery on the keyboard, specifically). The guitar focus is a nice change and another great direction that OE went, but that is not to say that the keyboards are say, crap, or gone; just simply that the keyboard is more of an atmospheric tool in this album than the debut. Anyway, on to how the members work together:

Pest's vocals are nothing but perfect, very high screaming, yet cleanly and sometimes more of a sorrowful high pitched yell and even some passages are sung.

The guitarist's hands fly around the fret board through the album creating some high speed madness with the blast beats to some sombre sounding melody with the keyboards. Some of the best riffs in metal are in this album.

The drums fit the album very well and are produced similar to the sound of Gorgoroth's "Antichrist", as a relevant comparison. Not too click-clackety, but still easily discernible. The drums and guitar flow flawlessly on this album; the only way it can be described as is magic (no, no pun intended, ha ha). The fills and stops in this album are great, and it can stress enough the importance of the guitar and drums (refer to "The Godless Lake") that makes this album absolutely stellar.

The keyboards on this album, while classically still inspired, are used in a more atmospheric manner when compared to their directness on Witchcraft. BUT! that is not to say they're devoid of purpose! The melodies that they play along with the guitars on this album are KILLER (refer to "The Dark Night of Souls").

Over all this album is a great find and I'm proud on myself for getting this and Witchcraft. You have no reason to not purchase their material now that all of it has just been reissued!