I am not an expert of the Black Metal scene and hence I will now get into the totally uninteresting and is some extent pointless discussion about what is and what is not true in this genre. The only comment I can see that fits here is that the Black Metal sense aesthetics changed after it has left the underground circle and consequently was introduced into the mainstream ways to gain more publicity; but this is the case for all the music genres, isn't it?

Nevertheless, ENTHRONED come from the country of Belgium that I personally considered as the 'silent' force in the Metal with many good band in the collection. ENTHRONED has been around the scene from the mid 90s but it is worth to mention that "Pentagrammaton" is released with no original members in the lineup.

The evil intro "In Missi Solemnibvs" with the unholy chanting introduces "The Vitalized Shell" that grabs you by the throat after the old-school sounding guitar riff. The bass and drums join in and there you have the solid sonic volume of ENTHRONED. The DIMMU BORGIR / BEHEMOTH influences can be track down in the killer rhythm section and the Shagrath sounding vocals. Fortunately for me, the symphonic approach of DIMMU BORGIR was kindly left aside and thus "Pentagrammaton" kicks in with a raw power that -yes- fits more to the Black Metal profile I have inside my mind. The guitar work is in the spotlight with razor sharp riff that combined to the blasting drums create a hearty sonic mayhem that I bet will please even those metalheads who like this old-school vs mainstream Black Metal rivalry.

The older ENTHRONED fans are once again challenged to get used to the vocals of Nornagest who took Sabathan's place behind the microphone in the previous release "Tetra Karcist". This change took ENTHRONED farther away from the Norwegian sound by dumping the monotonous screaming vocals and by clearing a little their sound production. The good thing is that Nornagest has the ability to sound like his predecessor by straining his vocal chords during the fast "The Essential Chaos" that has something from the "XES Haereticum" days.

As it usually happens in ENTHRONED albums the band has added a long in time duration song keeping the clock ticking for 7 minutes or so. This time the Belgians overdid it, and "Unconscious Minds" lasts 15 minutes paying the proper respect to the repetitive structure of BATHORY especially in the rhythm guitars. But after the end of this track a sense of incompleteness spoiled the initial very good impression. There is a tension that is being built from the very beginning that after the guitar solo should found an outlet to burst out; but this never happens.

All in all, ENTHRONED manage to keep a steady album producing pace that seems to remain unaffected by the many lineup changes except from the vocals side where the change is quite noticeable and may raise some arguments. But, as I always like to underline this is a matter of personal taste and that's period.