THE HOOM! YEAR IN METAL 2008: THE SPINE OF GOD

5 ENSLAVED * VERTEBRAE (Nuclear Blast)

For all the talk of Pink Floyd in the Metal world this year, it's odd that most of it pertained to Nachtmystium and their terrific Black Meddle outing and rarely to Enslaved's triumphant Vertebrae. Even more vexing is that Enslaved is the latest act to have the progressive tag affixed to them, when a more accurate descriptor would be psychedelic. It's simple, really: the latter is about repetition, extension, and drone; the former opts for the fragment, the quantity, the multiple in place of the singular. 

And Vertebrae is definitely not comprised of disparate moods and movements. Beautiful vocal harmonies float hither and thither, bolstered by walls of guitars that seem to be playing 12-note chords. Vertebrae's sound is sometimes so insubstantial, it threatens to blow away like dandelion spores, even though a gravelly black metal croaks paired with menacing riffs bury the album's anchor in Black Metal. But that anchor drags as warm winds propel the good ship Enslaved through calm seas even as calamity seems to engulf its passengers. It musta been a bitch to set the track order, because each track cycles through head-nodding grooves and lush, verdant melodics, lending a Lord of the Rings/Beowulf-style sense of epic within the epic. By the time one lands on towering finale "The Watcher," the listener has a firm image of what Pink Floyd would've sounded like had they been from Norway.