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I've been an Enthroned fan for many, many years now, but despite my affection for them, I will not stand up and say that albums like "Towards The Skullthrone Of Satan" or "Regie Sathanas" are the best that Black Metal can offer. Which is why "Carnage In Worlds Beyond" is such a treat, as here we have one of my fave bands really pushing themselves and in fact producing Black Metal that is about as good as it gets.

This is just a monster album. Enthroned always crammed a lot of riffs into a song, they just were not always the best riffs. They went for quantity over quality, and it made such fun albums as "Skullthrone" second-rate, no matter how much I liked them. But this…whoa. "Carnage" still packs in the riffs, but here they are all awesome, and as a result the CD is a nonstop barrage of high speed Black Metal slayage. This album right here is better than anything Marduk have ever done, and smokes most of Satyricon's output right off the page. This is Enthroned, so you know it's gonna be all fast, and it is, but here and there the guys will slow down for a bar or two to add punch or wring out a cool, doomish riff before they throw it in gear and blast away.

There's not much to say about this album, really, as if you know Enthroned's style none of this will come as any surprise. This album is no change in style, it is just miles better than anything else they have ever recorded, and better-produced to boot. If someone asked me to pick a handful of albums to exemplify modern Black Metal, this is probably one of the albums I would pick. Enthroned have never changed, and probably never will, and so I suppose they are as close to 'mainstream' as Black Metal has, but here they cranked everything up a notch and really ripped the shit out of it. Highly Recommended.

Additional Information

A limited edition with 3 bonus tracks is also available. Total 13 tracks, duration: 51:08.

Bonus tracks:

• The Septentrionnal Shrine
• The Horny and The Horned (Impaled Nazarene cover)
• Genocide 2002