Enslaved – Mið
Release Date: 30th October 2026
Label: Nuclear Blast
Bandcamp
Genre: Progressive Black Metal
FFO: Ihsahn, Windir, Emperor, Borknagar, Dødheimsgard.
Review By: Magnus Rotås
I don’t know what the word “consistency” means to you, but the first thing that comes to my head with such a word is Enslaved. It’s insane that after 35 years and now 17 albums, they are a band which I am still incredibly excited for every time they release new music. Mið (Old Norse for “the middle” or “the centre”) arrives on October 30 via Nuclear Blast as another testament to that rare quality: a band that somehow keeps evolving without ever losing the core of what makes them essential.
On a first listen this album feels like an album that I have loved all my life. An instant comfort album — something I could listen to no matter the day. But it’s when you start to listen more closely and pick the songs apart that you find just how many new ideas the band deploy to create an album that very much has its own identity, making it stand out in their discography.This is Enslaved in a slightly different mode. Inspired in part by Bathory’s Blood Fire Death and written more organically (much of it composed and arranged in the studio rather than fully pre-mapped), Mið dials back some of the denser progressive flourishes and labyrinthine structures of recent records. The songs hang onto ideas longer, breathe more, and feel more ritualistic and meditative. The result is something earthier, clearer, and strangely primal — primal cuts built on classic, hammering riffs that hit with a directness the band hasn’t quite leaned into like this before.
The progressive DNA, the clean/harsh vocal interplay, the atmospheric depth is all still there, just filtered through a more grounded and “simple” style, where the songs very much are written like songs, and less like a cinematic journey.
Most of Enslaved’s albums have incredibly good tracklists, but they always seem to have one monolithic banger that towers above the rest. For this album, that song is undoubtedly the extraordinary Parting. At over eight minutes it is the clear centrepiece: it opens with lush piano, pastoral acoustics, and a sense of quiet desolation before erupting into one of the most commanding, groove-laden riffs on the record. This is by far one of the best Enslaved songs from the “new era”, possibly one of their better songs of all time, if you ask me. An instant classic.
Then there are also songs like Spirit Helper (featuring Blackfeet Nation elder Kevin Kicking Woman) and I Am Ice (with Sámi yoik singer Johan Sara Jr.), both of which expand the album’s thematic and sonic palette in remarkable ways. The former builds a slow, tribalistic intensity around an Indigenous morning prayer handled by the band with so much respect and admiration; the latter kicks the album proper into gear with a deliberate stomp and striking vocal interplay. These collaborations don’t feel gimmicky, they feel like genuine points of connection across cultures and millennia, echoing the album’s fascination with ancient culture and shared human ideas.
The rest of the tracklist feels strong and purposeful as well. Solar Will and Tales of Trees deliver the more immediate, riff-driven energy with excellent clean vocal hooks. Mountain moves from quiet, almost post-rock introspection into a heavy tectonic second half, featuring the nastiest guitar/bass tone I have possibly ever heard from the band.
The brief atmospheric prelude Non-Being sets a perfect tone, while the closing I Miðju stretches out into the more expansive, progressive territory the band has always excelled at.
When it comes to the vibe of this album, it’s not Enslaved being particularly dark, nor depressive. Instead, the songs feel empowering and strangely uplifting. It’s very much a “get back up on your feet and fight!” sort of album — radiant, purposeful, and full of a sense of renewal and connection to nature.
The production is typically outstanding (cinematic yet organic), the performances locked-in and vital, and the conceptual thread — ancient monuments as emblems of shared human impulse across vast distances of time and geography — gives the whole thing a quiet grandeur.
Mið may not be the most aggressive or immediately flashy Enslaved album, and it doesn’t chase the highest peaks of their most celebrated works. What it does instead is feel like a genuine new beginning: simpler in places, more ritualistic, more open to the world, and still unmistakably them. In a discography this rich and restless, that is no small achievement.
With such a great discography, it’s hard to say where Mið would rank amongst the others, but one thing is certain – if you have enjoyed their last few albums like I have, then you are gonna love this one! This album reminds me of who we are, its wisdom feels as old as the mountains outside my window and as important as the trees around me. It’s a pure injection of strength for anyone who is in the miðst of living their life.
(5 / 5)
