Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Emperor - Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk (1997)

As it turns out, doing these album reviews not only puts me onto new records that I have never gotten around to listening to but also it seems it is highlighting former favourites that aren't perhaps ageing as well.   Anthems... falls into the latter unfortunately.  For the first time today, I noticed how confusing the whole experience of the album was.  All of sudden the sweeping keys and the grandiose swagger of the symphonic elements seemed hurriedly put together.  The once well-formed maelstrom of sound came across as being more a wall of noise nowadays.  

Maybe my ageing brain is the part of the equation that is all out of fluster here, musical tastes do change after all over time.  But, as per my review of Dimmu Borgir's Enthrone Darkness Triumphant there really is a sense of their being an utter rejection of the concepts and notions of coupling poise and calm with direct and driving pace to give a more clear vision of what the direction an album is taking.

With more traditional BM the journey is much easier of course.  The raw, lo-fi ethics of the music lends itself well to repetition and sustained attack.  When Anthems...  applies the same ethos with symphonic elements to boot it loses sight of the need to temper one or the other.  It is like a pack of racehorses, neck and neck for the whole race, resulting in no clear winner.  Imagine a whole day at the races where every race was like that, where nothing was clearly putting daylight between itself and the rest of the pack.  This is how the track listing feels to me now as I listen back.  Everything kind of becomes one.   Just a singular charging mass that allows nothing to really standout or for any leader position to change hands over the course of what soon becomes a slog.