Enthroned "Towards The Skullthrone Of Satan" (Blackend 1997)

Sometimes destiny is weird, or even bad because a band like Enthroned deserved more attention…for sure. After the very good debut, they release in 1997 this excellent “Towards The Skullthrone Of Satan” that is definitely faster and more evil than the album before. 

The production is quite raw but exalts the guitar sound, always brutal, cold and truly evil. The drums are fast and raw in the snare-bass drum sound. “The Ultimate Horde Fights” is on blast beats with the screamed vocals typical by Sabathan. 

Well, the main Enthroned characteristic is to mix in a perfect way obscure guitar lines with fast tempo, so we can find more “mid paced” parts where the true satanic soul is expressed through bestial, malevolent lead guitars lines. “Ha Shaitan” is great and check out the satanic melody from the guitars, especially during the mid paced part. The hyper speed restart part in this song is something unbelievable…

“Evil Church” is my favourite one here. A track to worship, admire, love…rarely Enthroned expressed themselves in these levels. The track is perfectly balanced between obscure melodies and black metal massacres. The refrain is a piece of history of this genre. A small gem. “The Antichrist Summons The Black flame” and “The Forest Of Nathrath” are again a perfect mixture of black metal assault parts with lots of tempo changes and dark melodies. Fucking great. 

Listen to the great black melodies to “Throne To Purgatory” or to the gloomy beginning of “When The Horny Flames…”, this one with excellent solos breaks. Really, this is the very first, in my opinion, Enthroned great work. I believe it’s better than the debut, especially for the guitar song writing and for the burden of fury and Satanism. 

efore I bought this one, I hadn't heard much of Enthroned, and I know now that separated tracks from different albums are not really representative, at least for Enthroned. What's the difference? I have really thought that Enthroned is just another copy of Marduk plus guitar solos. But Enthroned is much more than just "berserk" drums and quickly "spitted" growl (satan, satan, satan and so on). Actually, so fast drums are rather often than usual, because in every song there are few slower moments. Also, lyrics are much more thoughtfully written. But what makes Enthroned so original is that the album is full of electronical intros/outros, sometimes you may heard acoustics or woman (I guess, "Hertogenwald") singing, keyboards are also common. This makes "Towrads the Skullthrone of Satan" various and different.

However, if you look for speed and blasphemy, don't worry - Enthroned is still based on style that swedish BM is known of. One thing that is not good in Enthroned are the vocals - but they are at leasts not annoying, like those in Absu (actually, Proscriptor sounds very similar to Sabathan). Each track sounds different, there are no "genious" ones and no bad ones, just good BM with in very interesting style. "Dusk of Forgotten Darkness", "Evil Church" and "Hertogenwald" would be the best on the album, but every one is really worth listening.

An album to admire in black metal. Back to the roots of evil with Enthroned. 

Enthroned "Regie Sathanas" (Blackend Records 1998)

I cannot believe it has already been 19 years since I have actually purchased my copy of “Regie Sathanas”! Time flies like crazy and it really makes me feel a bit old hehe. But there are always those great memories left, when I was 18 and have been a huge fan of Enthroned at that time. I really, really worshipped their first two albums (“Prophecies of Pagan Fire” and “Towards the Skullthrone of Satan”, if you don’t them) and have been listening them a lot (A LOT!!). Ha, nowadays both albums don’t really make such a big impression on me anymore, but that may be just because I know every sound on them too well and they seem slightly boring nowadays. But I still consider early Enthroned as one of the greatest black metal bands. But back to “Regie Sathanas”… It was very special release and I just had to buy my own copy, as soon as it has been available at the Polish distro (Mystic Productions’). This MCD obviously memorizes Cernunnos, the drummer of Enthroned, who committed suicide in 1997. He recorded his parts for the second LP and hasn’t even lived long enough to see it being released. Well, since I consider suicide as the stupidity more than bravery (pha!), I am not gonna cry for Cernunnos, but surely I must say that “Regie Sathanas” is actually my favourite release in the discography of Enthroned. It is just fantastic half an hour of classic Enthroned and the finest material the band has recorded.

Track list: 

1. Prelude to Satan's Avengers (instrumental)

2. By Dark Glorious Thoughts

3. Walpurgis Night

4. Satan Never Sleeps

5. The Conqueror (Sodom cover)

6. Deny the Holy Book of Lies

7. Outro (instrumental)

As the booklet for “Regie Sathanas” says, some stuff from this MCD dates as back as to 1988, when Cernunnos and Sabathan were shredding the guts with their previous band Morbid Death (ha, I love Sabathan’s nickname on the first Morbid Death demo – “Guy-Guy”, luckily not “Gay-Gay” hehe!!!!). Song titled “Satan Never Sleeps” is the one, which was written back then and it even appeared on Morbid Death’s second demo “Diabolic Force”. I’ve never heard this demo, but when listening to the new version of this track you can obviously hear that this is something way more archaic and stylistically different to what Enthroned was ever doing. But I actually really, really like this track a lot. That opening theme is just awesome and later, when it turns into archaic thrashing death metal, but played with the black metal sound and vocals, it just blows my head off. It is actually worth to mention that the drums on “Regie Sathanas” were played by new drummer of the band, Namroth Blackthorn, who also have been a member of Morbid Death and even recorded the drums for the mentioned “Diabolic Force” demo (Dan Vandenplas, a’ka Cernunnos was a guitarist / vocalist in this band!). Ha, the history comes full circle here!

Along with this old song, Enthroned recorded here two new songs from 1997, which were composed with the new line up, after “Towards the Skullthrone of Satan” was released and again I must say that I like both songs a lot. “My Dark Glorious Thoughts” is especially killer, very fast, relentless and violent piece of black metal, but obviously it is not bereft of the melody, which has always been present in Enthroned’s music (actually, just listen to that awesome, long harmonious guitar solo… what a great tune!). Another new track, “Walpurgis Night”, may have slightly odd beginning, but it’s a classic song for this band, with catchy and memorable riffing and overall a great, dark and satanic atmosphere. Moving forward though, the cover of Sodom’s “Conqueror” sounds just absolutely fuckin KILLER, it has been played very fast and really shreds to pieces, I may even like this version more than the original song from Sodom he! I know it may sound blasphemous, but just listen to this version on “Regie Sathanas” and tell me if it is not a fuckin shredder. And finally the whole MCD is finished with a new version of “Deny the Holy Book of Lies”, my favourite song from “Prophecies of Pagan Fire” LP. And again it just sounds extremely great, it has been played way faster than on the album or “Promo 1994”, where it also appeared. And man, what an excellent piece of black metal it is, what a memorable song and amazing, obscure atmosphere. This is why I like Enthrone music so much… with those excellent riffs, raspy vocals of Sabathan and freezing cold, satanic atmosphere. Just fuckin scream “Ave Satan… ave… ave!!!!” with Sabathan and feel the essence of Enthroned! And in the end it has been played so fast that it is just a fuckin shock!. 

Yeah, can you feel my enthusiasm towards “Regie Sathanas”? Really, I think this MCD is just excellent and by far it is the best of all Enthroned releases, in my opinion. It is extremely powerful and contains just excellent songs, all closed in 30 minutes, what is not bad for the MCD. I strongly recommend it to you all. If you call yourself a black metal maniac, you just must have this release. For me it also has sort of sentimental value, being one of my favourite releases and bands from the mid to lat 90’s, so… “Regie Sathanas”!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope they’ll release it on vinyl one day though, as I have all other Enthroned albums on vinyl, only this one of CD hehe!

Standout tracks: “By Dark Glorious Thoughts”, “Deny the Holy Book of Lies”, “Conqueror”.