Metal Blade just sent this to me, about two months after I received Enthroned's latest album. Basically an E.P. of old and new material (plus a cover of Sodom's The Conqueror) made as a tribute to their former drummer (who chose to kill himself rather than live in a world full of Christians, why didn't he just move to Utah?), RS is black metal to the extreme. Meaning: guitar riffs from hell, blastbeats from beyond and vocals out of the void. Never been the biggest Enthroned fan, but they do have their following, which means that once again I may just not recognize talent when I hear it. I guess I just get sick of hearing the same damn riffs over and over again with no break to the monotony. Well, a couple of the tracks don't follow that format here, with Walpurgis Night actually being a bit slow, surprising, as Towards the Skullthrone of Satan seemed to have one drum beat for the entire album! Satan Never Sleeps (which is why he's so evil) is a track from the band's Morbid Death days, and the thrash influence back there totally shows. Weird, but probably my favorite track on the album. Their cover of The Conqueror isn't all that bad, but as Expurse of Sodomy is by far my favorite Sodom opus, it's hard for me to judge fairly. So, I'm still not the biggest Enthroned fan, and I probably will never be, but Regie Sathanas is by far their most interesting work for me. And at almost 30 minutes, this E.P. isn't that bad of a bargain. "Conqueror, conqueror!"

Major improvement here, and a good thing for me, as I seriously did not get into their last offering. Don't know if it was due to a session drummer stepping in on Skullthrone, but that album seemed as though it was set on autopilot and let loose to fly wildly in the night. Greater control, better song structure, and some dynamics lead me to like this album more, but the whole thing is stil a bit too raw for me. Keeping things real by recording the album in the treble hemisphere, Enthroned play some unholy black metal, quality stuff for the fanatic, but a bit too frentic for me after 30 minutes. I prefer things a bit less tinny, something with some meat in it, making this my worst nightmare in terms of production, as the mix emphasizes the higher register. Less apparent during the slower sections, but since a great deal of the album is blastbeat central, a heaping dose of cymbals and snare dominates the forefront. So, while it's leaps and bounds above their previous work, still not to my tastes.