Enslaved "Below The Lights (France, Osmose Productions, OPCD 144)"

Below the Lights is the seventh full-length album by Norwegian metal band Enslaved. Beyond it being their last full-length for production company Osmose (they would move to Candlelight for their next studio album), a few lineup changes would take place. This would be the last album Enslaved recorded with Dirge Rep on drums (he also co-wrote two songs). They would also enlist a full-time keyboardist in Herbrand Larsen (who helped engineer the record), bringing the band personnel from four to five.

AllMusic's William York wrote a positive review of the album, writing that "for all its variety, this is still a fairly heavy, meat-and-potatoes album with plenty of emotional nuance as well. There are a few spots where Enslaved's ambitions get the better of them, but the experimentation is welcome in any case, and most of it does work. Below the Lights will likely stand out down the road as one of the top black metal releases of 2003." In 2016, About.com named it the best Enslaved album to date, highlighting it for being "everything the band had been slowly building towards was fully realized", fully unleashing the band's potential, and "their crowning achievement."

Tracklist:

1. As Fire Swept Clean the Earth 06:35  
2. The Dead Stare 05:37
3. The Crossing 09:11  
4. Queen of Night 05:59
5. Havenless 05:35  
6. Ridicule Swarm 06:18  
7. A Darker Place 07:01   

Time:  46:16  

The runes on the cover reads "Voluspaa Seks og Ti" which probably refers to strophes six and ten of the Völuspá, the most well-known poem of the Poetic Edda, describing the beginning and the end of the world. 

According to a 2003 interview with Ivar Bjørnson, the album title, a lyric from the song "A Darker Place", and the album artwork, portray how "the lights are where everything's acted out, but it's all made below... Like nice green grass and flowers - the stuff going on below... worms, dead leaves, dead bugs, dead animals, everything shift-shaping and growing into new stuff all the time". 

Warning - Osmose CD presses up to around 2005 may contain a copy-protection

method which renders the CD completely unreadable in PCs and certain modern

Hi-Fi systems. This isn't indicated anywhere on the packaging.

Recording information:

Recorded in Grieghallen Studios, Bergen (NO) during September & October 2002.

Mixed in Duper Studios, Bergen (NO) during January 2003.

Mastered in Duper Studios, Bergen (NO) and Digipro Studios, Paris (FR) during February 2003.

Arranged By Enslaved

Produced By Pytten, Jørgen Træen, Ivar Peersen & Grutle Kjellson

Engineered By Pytten, Herbrand Larsen & Davide Bertolini

Mixed By Ivar Bjornson, Grutle Kjellson & Jørgen Træen at Duper Studios in Bergen

Mastered By Nicholas Ramaget, Pierre Dechamps (both at Digipro Studios) & Jørgen Træen (at Duper Studios)

All Songs Published By Les Editions Hurlantes.