Black Metal History Month- Emperor's "Prometheus the Discipline of Fire & Demise"

Ok here we go in our promised to dig into the meat of Emperor's catalogue for black metal history month The first song carries a great deal of the aggressive energy black metal is known for , but the production and arrangement to the music is more refined. "Depraved' has less of the gothic finery draped about it, the synths do not really make themselves known til two minutes in and the groove feels more death metal. Though halfway into it the riffs that I love remind me that they dwell in this song. Yes, the rule here is cool riffs alone does not a good song make, but these guys temper them with an impressive sonic direction to race into, often in a more angular fashion that what most of black metal was doing at the time.

"Empty" does hit you with a lot of blasts. It gets broken up with a headbanging worthy gallop, along with the song being littered with lots of weird space noises. "The Prophet" is however a better song as its melody stands out more, it is big and epic, though also lashes out with black metal savagery.  There are lots of cool punches and might go down as being in my top ten Emperor songs. There are more faster moments on this album than I remembered. I tend to listen to the first two albums the most, so glad I am getting to refresh myself on this one. The melodic yet mean spirited nature of the guitars going into "the Tongue of Fire' feel more like death metal due to the technical nature, but the romantic feel of the sweeping melodies that cascade down from this bring things back to black metal. The progressive feel at the three-minute mark it incredible. They broke many walls down for black metal here. I also like hearing go up in the more King Diamond like falsetto on this. 

"The Wordless Chamber" waltzes out from the previous song. As with progressive music of any genre the expansive nature of the arrangements can make it hard to tell where on song ends and the other begins. Ihsahn's croak is impressive here. "Grey" works off what is being to feel like an almost Morbid Angel like manner of grinding the grooves out in machine like fashion. "He Who Sought the Fire" is more iconic with the big melodies, though the opening verse riff sounds like black metal as usual. The riffs it races into have some of the album's most memorable hooks. "Thorns on My Grave" is another that is numbered among the band's best songs. I will give this album a 9.5, one of the genre's most progressive offerings that influenced many other bands that followed.