Enslaved - RIITIIR (2LP) - Gold Vinyl

By the time Enslaved reached RIITIIR, released in Europe on 28 September 2012 and in North America on 9 October via Nuclear Blast, the Norwegian shapeshifters had already rewritten their own rulebook several times. This is the twelfth studio album from a band that started as frosty second-wave black metal kids and grew into one of the most thoughtful progressive metal outfits around. RIITIIR feels like the apex of that arc, a widescreen suite of long, breathing songs that treat blast beats and Hammond swells as equal parts of the same organism.

The personnel here is a huge part of the record’s character. Grutle Kjellson’s gnarly bass and harsh vocals ground the whole thing, while Herbrand Larsen’s warm keys and soaring cleans move in and out like light breaking through heavy weather. On guitars, Ivar Bjørnson and Arve “Ice Dale” Isdal build fractal riffs that double as melodies, not just scaffolding for the growls. Cato Bekkevold’s drumming brings heft and swing, which matters when your songs stretch past the ten-minute mark and still need to feel alive. You can hear how tightly this lineup writes together, then lets the songs expand in the studio.

Production-wise, RIITIIR benefits from the polish of Jens Bogren, who mixed the album at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden. The clarity lets the guitars chime without sanding off the grit, and the vocals sit in a pocket that makes the harsh and clean interplay feel conversational rather than pasted together. Truls Espedal’s cover art, another eerie and painterly piece in the band’s visual lineage, sets the tone before the needle drops. On a big sleeve it’s even better, which is why RIITIIR vinyl is one of those editions you pull out just to stare at before you play it.

The opener, Thoughts Like Hammers, lives up to its title with a lurching, jagged riff that keeps recombining as the band threads in choral keys and that unmistakable clean vocal lift. Death in the Eyes of Dawn is the emotional hinge, where a windswept melody keeps resolving into heavier passages that never feel like a genre switch, just a weather change. Veilburner pulls off a trick Enslaved love, setting a mid-tempo march against rising chords that hint at triumph without ever sounding cheesy. Then there’s Roots of the Mountain, the towering fan favorite. It has that late-period Enslaved thing where the harsh verses feel ancient and earthy, and the clean refrain opens a window to the sky. When they played it live on the tours that followed, you could feel the room rise with the chorus, even in venues built for punk shows and not prog-length epics.

The title itself is a small manifesto. RIITIIR is a coined word that points to rites and ritual, a theme the band has talked about in interviews, and the lyrics lean into cycles of transformation and renewal. That sense of passage informs the pacing. Songs start in the thicket, find a clearing, then dive back into the undergrowth, and by the time you reach the final minutes you feel like you’ve crossed terrain, not just heard chapters. It is complicated, sure, but it never feels like homework. The melodies stick, the riffs have bite, and even the keyboards have a human wobble that keeps things from going clinical.

Critics heard it, too. Major metal magazines and sites praised RIITIIR for stretching progressive black metal without losing the primal spark that made Enslaved matter in the first place. If Vertebrae and Axioma Ethica Odini mapped the road, RIITIIR is the panoramic lookout point where everything comes into focus. It is one of those records that sits comfortably next to mid-era Opeth for mood, yet still sounds unmistakably like Enslaved within a few bars.

If you collect Enslaved vinyl, this one is essential. The dynamics breathe on wax, the cymbals bloom, and Espedal’s art rewards the larger canvas. If you are hunting around a Melbourne record store or browsing vinyl records Australia late at night, keep an eye out. It is easy to buy Enslaved records online, and RIITIIR is the one I pull off the shelf when friends ask where to start with Enslaved albums on vinyl. It captures the band at full stride, elegant and feral at once, the kind of album that reminds you why you fell for heavy music in the first place.