I - Between Two Worlds Review
Posted by Evocator Manes on 12.18.2006
Black metallians rejoice!
I Between Two Worlds
Nuclear Blast
2006
8.5
The last Immortal album, Sons Of Northern Darkness was almost universally hailed as the best of their career, so it was with many cries of anguish when the band broke up. Horgh went to Hypocrisy and Abbath went on to do the Bombers project, which was a Motorhead cover band, of all things. He also was stealthily working on a solo project, along with members of Enslaved, Gorgoroth and even an old Immortal mate. He didn't want to call it Abbath and it was obviously not Immortal, so eventually, it was settled on "I" (or Roman numeral 1).
The first song, The Storm I Ride, is immediately reminiscent of Motorhead, though with an Immortal twist, but it seems you can take the man out of Immortal, but not the Immortal out of the man and by the second song, Immortal is showing up more and more until it seems like the project is more of a drift back to the death metal glory of that band than any particular new project. It's not quite a solo album, but not the bridge between Motorhead and Immortal that others would have you believe it is, either.
The melodic riffwork employed by Immortal is here and present, but it is the intriguing guitar solos that really start to call attention. This was intended to be a combination of more straightforward rock'n'roll and death metal, though it leans more heavily to the latter than the former. In a lot of not-so-direct ways, such as song construction and arrangements and the absence much of the time of the vaunted double-kick drums and blast beats, this album is indeed touched by rock throughout, but the net effect, particularly with Abbath on vocals, is that of Immortal-Lite. At times when he attempts to sing, he winds up sounding more like Lemmy than the guy who did the vocals for Battles In The North, but that is more sporadic than anything. Most of the time, Abbath sounds like the Immortal version, particularly when the subject matter goes to mountains or battalions or north winds.
The artwork here is pretty nifty and inventive. It is a foldout digipak, with the "I" on the front cover in chrome, a motif that informs the entire CD. Inside the fold is the band playing live, with guitarist Ice Dale doing a pretty good Ace Frehley pose on the side. The booklet is stapled into the middle of the foldout and the lyrics are fully reprinted in chrome. The band photos are done completely without make-up, more in the Motorhead style, with Abbath even ripping a Lemmy pose. The packaging here is nothing short of excellent.
The 411: Not particularly directed at fans of Immortal or Motorhead, yet the music is appealing enough that fans of either of them should enjoy this. It will likely leave Immortal fans anxious for the next album or reaching for the old ones and Motorhead fans wondering "what if". In many ways, this is also the guitar album of the year as there is plenty of blazing speed, but also an equal number of tasteful and brilliant leads. If this was a battle of Immortal vs. Motorhead, Immortal wins, but not without Motorhead cleaving some huge damage and making a pronounced impact in proceedings. One of the better releases of 2006. Highly recommended.
