Yes you probably have this already, either the first time around or at the least a reissue but there is plenty of reason to breathe some new life back into Emperor’s seminal 1994 debut studio album In The Nightside Eclipse again now. Firstly it is 20 years old and unless you lived in a cave you are no doubt aware that the original band have reformed for some select festival appearances playing these songs again for the last time. What you have to remember when dipping back into this landmark album is just how young its innovators were at the time. This is comprehensively detailed in a great thorough interview which is found nestled between the two discs on this reissue on the making of the album written by J Bennett for Decibel magazine in 2005. There is a lot of insight into the process at Grieghellen studios that is well worth a read. It part explains how interested Ihsahn became in the recording process as he was too young to go down the pub and no doubt studying under engineer Pytten helped pave the way for just how proficient he was to become himself in the future with Emperor and beyond. If you pick this nice hard-book edition of the album up this interview should be your first port of call once you finally manage to tear yourself away from the fantastic Necrolord cover art. Breathe in the time and essence of the album and then give it a play.
Naturally going over the majesty of it all here again would be a path well trodden but it is an incredibly evocative album that not only brings back personal memories to those that lived through it and grew up with it as part of a soundtrack to life but it is also one from a time that musically can probably never be repeated. The huge orchestrations and symphonic aspects of the album have probably never been bettered despite a horde of imitators trying. The explosive force as the introduction booms ‘Into The Infinity Of Thoughts’ is still completely breath-taking. Ihsahn’s feral vocals are spellbinding like a necromantic Black Wizard conjuring vile spell-craft. The keyboards are eerie and haunting putting a big two fingers up to anyone who says they don’t belong in black metal. Faust’s percussive blasts are fantastically defined and boom forth thunderously in the mix and the bass and guitars from Tchort, Samoth and Ihsahn coat everything in a thick bristling layer of fast and furious grandeur which at full pelt is completely devastating. The album is as close to perfection as you will ever find, nothing is wasted on it in the slightest and the atmosphere and brutality combined together make this a seething unholy mass that sounds just as fantastic today as when it was spawned by a bunch still in their teens two decades ago. It’s one of the reasons that I am sometimes harsh when reviewing younger bands, the “they are still kids” won’t wash when it comes to thinking about such a benchmark as this! If listening to this again doesn’t manage to send a shiver down the spine still, well you must be cold, grey and dead.
Naturally there are extras here and the biggest coup on the re-mastered edition is a completely different and previously unreleased mix of the album done in 1993. It’s an intriguing listen and one that struck as even more feral and rabid at times, there’s not much in the way of details on who did this and I know my limitations when it comes to comparing versions of songs to each other but there is a different hunger and intensity to it and although the original is pretty much untouchable it’s well worth a couple of listens.
Both mixes are followed by some extras too. The first disc fills in some discography gaps with the band’s As The Shadows Rise 7” from 1994, something that I doubt there are many original copies of floating about. This sounds great too with the almost chainsaw riffing honing in on ‘The Ancient Queen’ and a nice meaty sound and gravity about it. Not quite so polished are the three tracks comprising the demo and pre production rehearsal tracks for In The Nightside Eclipse itself. Titled The Akkerhaugen Tapes these take a bit of the majesty out of the Nightsky, Burning Shadows and Black Wizards and put them in a cold dank cell, stripped down of all comforts and just the bones of rats to gnaw on. Still they sound a lot better than the early, just released demos of another band of black metal practitioners from the UK who had been closely following this blueprint to have a stab at it themselves. This is a nice rough and raw addition that’s good to have as a bonus and gives a good illustration that the band had good ideas developed and ready to go and be laid down in the studio prior to going in and recording this piece of art. It’s also amusing listening to the drumming on The Burning Shadows…. which sound like they are so fast it’s almost like a Benny Hill parody of the number.
It’s an overall package I kind of don’t want to give a mark to at the end of the day, as naturally it has to be a ridiculously high one and the album itself without any extras already deserves such a score for itself. Probably the only reason I have not given it a 10 is that perhaps I’m saving that for the 20th anniversary edition of Anthems!
(9.5/10 Pete Woods)
Leave a Reply