10 Best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Albums Of 2018
2. Ihsahn – Ámr
“Lend me the eyes of millennia!”
With that one shrill wail, Ihsahn’s 2018 solo album, Ámr, commences. The opening track sets the tone of the progressive masterpiece to follow, commencing to crawling synths that slowly build to a symphonic apex. Then “Arcana Imperii” provides an intensely melodic black metal explosion, followed by the hard rock-inspired ballad “Sámr”.
It is very quickly apparent that Ámr is an album which is unafraid to explore every corner of the sonic map, making use of many a rock ‘n’ roll subgenre. But every unabashedly unique track is still sewn together by an underlying melancholy that sets a consistent, dark tone.
As a progressive metal album, Ámr isn’t a hundred-miles-a-minute shredding marathon. Mathematically, it’s a far simpler entry into the genre, letting its bleakness and diversity create a soulful journey, unsullied by any excessively and needlessly complex musicianship.
Between this album, his European tour to promote it and his stint with Emperor to commemorate twenty years of Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, Ihsahn has been unstoppable in 2018. And with his originality and consistency, no musician could be more deserving.