Upon listening to Emperor for the first time in a little while when prepping for an interview with Ihsahn (coming soon!), I found it remarkable how the Emperor of In the Nightside Eclipse is a completely different band from that on their ridiculously dense blackened death prog swan song, Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise. Though one could argue that some of this had to do with the band’s multiple line-up changes, the band’s core – Ihsahn and guitarist Samoth – were present throughout. Using “evolution” in terms of the lifespan of a band was pretty much coined for groups like Emperor, seeing as they progressed from a scrappy True Norwegian black metal upstart to something beyond that altogether, becoming so different from their origin that they had to split up to pursue different avenues (Samoth with blackened death kingpins Zyklon and Ihsahn with his more expansive, prog-minded solo material). Emperor bucked the trend of picking a sound and sticking to it (and the genre’s general hypocrisy of staunchly preaching individuality while decrying any band that deviates from a certain set of rules as to what a black metal band is supposed to sound like) by being the band they needed to be, and though their reliance on keyboards and operatic singing may sound silly at first, Ihsahn’s compositional prowess (he composed all of Prometheus himself on top of working with Samoth for the rest of the band’s albums) would be a shame to ignore.
Which was what I always found disappointing about his solo work: while always quite enjoyable, it never really emerged from the shadow of Emperor. For every great, kinda-interesting-on-its-own moment, there’s been a riff that could have wound up on one of Emperor’s late-period works. The sense of constant evolution that drove the band has been sadly missing from Ihsahn’s solo material. Fortunately, on After, his latest, he emerges bravely with nothing reminiscent of his past. And while this will bring a tear to the eye of the dudes who shelled out a few hundred dollars to see Emperor play stateside a few years ago, the album is often exciting and brilliantly complex while being almost completely devoid of black metal. Closing out a trilogy of albums recorded under his own moniker, Ihsahn has made what is, at the very least, his most interesting album of solo material to date, if not (very easily) his best. Scoff at its lack of true-ness if you must, but After is an excellent album. Almost a decade after the dissolution of Emperor, the man has finally come into his own.
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You love Ihsahn; you named his 2010 album After as the MS readers’ collective favorite album of the year, and with great reason. You love Devin Townsend; no qualifier needed, because obviously you do unless you’re a complete ninny. So how do you feel about Ihsahn and Devin Townsend together… on one recording??
If not, you’re seriously missing out.
Now’s your chance to have a listen to what might be my favorite album of 2010 so far, former Emperor frontman Ihsahn’s second solo album After. 
