LEARNING A LITTLE LONELINESS FROM IHSAHN’S EREMITA
What does solitude feel like? Ihsahn’s latest release, Eremita, seeks to ask this question lyrically as well as musically. Eremita is another concept album from the former Emperor, focusing on the symbolism of the title, which is Latin for “the hermit.” This album isn’t entirely removed from Ihsahn’s last release, 2010’s acclaimed After, but the two are distinctly different. Both in terms of both musicality and structure, Ihsahn has continued pushing his experimental identity further, giving us an album that’s sonically varied and lyrically intriguing. And his attempts to illustrate for us the feeling of solitude are, by and large, a success.
Throughout the album, classical guitar passages ring out amidst the low growl of the 8-strings, weaving their way between the riffs and the intermittent but enjoyable pinch harmonics. Ihsahn has yet again found a balance between clean and distorted guitar; the transitions can be abrupt but are never unpleasant, and much of the time the heaviness is seamlessly tied into the melody. Many of the songs have choruses, but not all; a handful avoid traditional song structure, instead meandering through complicated riff exchanges and slow, low breaks. Ihsahn alternates between his unique harsh vocals and clean singing, generally preferring the harsh vocals. And he’s even managed to groove — hard. It’s impossible not to roll with the riffs in “The Paranoid;” the song is so catchy that it borders on being mainstream-friendly.
Jorgen Munkby’s saxophone work, which was so striking on After, also returns on this album. The sax performs a similar role on Eremita, serving both as an aural portrayal of chaos and as a melodic background voice. Both functions accentuate the aspects of disorder and melody already present in the music. Whether it’s soaring above the rest of the instruments, or screaming along in the background, the sax is always there, intense and unwavering.
The other guest musicians’ appearances don’t go unnoticed. Jeff Loomis’s clear solo style cuts like a knife through the middle of “The Eagle and the Snake,” and Devin Townsend’s characteristic wails add structure to the mid-tempo “Introspection.” But far and away the most impressive guest voice shows up in the final track, “Departure.” Completely unexpected, the pale vocals of Heidi Tveitan (also Ihsahn’s wife) emerge as a tiny eye in the storm, slowly building up from nothing into a clear, ethereal call. They’re a great complement to the heaviness of the song, and they segue well into the powerful keyboards that mark the album’s close.
Conceptually, Eremita is a success as well. Appropriately for its title, it feels musically isolated from most other releases in recent years, what with its willingness to experiment with the atmosphere of the songs; they’ve got that grinding inevitability that invoke images of a man marching, alone, slowly but surely. And the lyrical references to disconnection and isolation are high-impact, since so many of them are clearly audible.
But the thing that really makes Eremita is its sonic texture. Ihsahn has utilized an extensive amount of sounds here, ranging from the shrieking saxophone-guitar harmonies on “The Eagle and the Snake” to the black, depressive keystrokes of “Grief.” He has hit the highest and lowest of notes, and he’s shaped those notes with a plethora of different instrumental tones. This sonic variety kept me intrigued on each track — simply because there’s something new to be heard on every song. Every tune is a roller coaster, tearing upside down and sideways in unpredictable patterns that are a pure thrill. “Something Out There,” one the album’s strongest songs, is an eerie, haunting track driven by slower chord progressions, squealing synths, and Ihsahn’s captivating choruses.
It’s worth considering this release in relation to Ihsahn’s previous work. How far removed from After is Eremita? The twisting and turning journey of the music feels similar to the harrowing passage we undertook in 2010, but it’s not the same. Ihsahn hasn’t turned down the heaviness — he’s turned up the prog. Double bass still pounds through this album, tempered by the down-tuned thrum of guitars, but Ihsahn’s songwriting has placed more and more of that brutality right up against mellower sections, starkly yet smoothly contrasting the two. The clean vocals are more frequent and better enunciated on Eremita than they were on After, and I found myself both listening to and enjoying the lyrics more than I have in the past.
The real difference between the two is that After gave us the “full-album” experience, while Eremita feels a bit more fractured. Initially, my impression was that Eremita works better as a full album than most releases; but repeat listens reveal that while the album is coherent, it is not continuous. Most of the songs in the middle of the album feel like they could have their track numbers swapped with little impact on the album as a whole. Tracks 3-6 are all mid-tempo songs, and while each one could be considered a standout on its own, the similarities between them are more apparent (and the differences less so) when digested back-to-back. This actually makes them more rewarding to enjoy as individual songs, rather than parts of a whole. Still, it works; the lack of cohesion between songs feels like it somehow further validates the underlying theme of solitude. And although Eremita doesn’t provide the “full album” experience fans may be hoping for, it still has a clear beginning, middle, and end. The opening riffs and atmospheric noise on “Arrival” scream for attention, and the monolithic, ever-changing “Departure” seals the record with its sweeping, grandoise groove and melancholic keyboards.
Despite the lack of continuity on Eremita, it’s still a powerful work. The sheer variety and quality of its musical content will keep listeners interested for months, if not years. That, coupled with the release’s strong lyrical and conceptual theme, is really what makes Eremita good.
(4 out of 5 horns)
-DM
