Review: Enslaved – Mið

October 27, 2026

Mið! Not mid

One thing that fascinates me about Norwegian black metal outside of the lore, memes and all that, are the bands that formed during that initial wave that orbited around Euronymous from Mayhem—and his record store turned metal-themed tourist trap Helvete—that managed to outgrow all that and remain prolific and even acclaimed.

Enter Enslaved! These guys have had quite a storied career, first starting as proteges of sorts to Euronymous, but instead of following the trend of satanic misanthropy, they focused instead on Norse mythology and history, and since then they’ve reinvented themselves time and again, going from Viking black metal to increasingly progressive and psychedelic realms while maintaining a unique sense of extremity.

This constantly forward-thinking approach led to Enslaved becoming one of the most acclaimed Norwegian bands, still going strong after 35 years and now releasing album 17, titled Mið, an Old Norse word for “centre,” or “middle,” and released through Nuclear Blast.

Much like the other early black metal-turned-avant-garde band I reviewed last month, Enslaved are a tough band to fully categorize or even recommend because you’re never getting the same album twice. Sure, for the last decade Enslaved has become a very consistent and reliable extreme progressive metal band, but even then, they make a point of never repeating themselves.

The things you can definitely expect include Grutle Kjellson’s guttural and epic vocals, backed by Håkon Vinje’s melodious voice and keys, a twin guitar kaleidoscope from Ivar Bjørnson and Arve Isdal, as well as Iver Sandøy’s drumming and production. This lineup has been together almost a decade by now and the albums they’ve made have been consistently great, and this is very much the case for Mið.

But a big change is how this album was constructed in the studio as opposed to the band developing Ivar Bjørnson’s demos, and the end result is a very full-sounding record that’s equally expansive as it is pared back; all the instruments and the band’s performance are top-notch and masterful, and the lineup’s chemistry gives the songwriting that tightness and refinement to keep it grounded. Enslaved has never been a meandering band in regards to their compositions and instrumentation despite wearing the trappings of prog, psych and krautrock with pride, but this record feels especially concise and tight; every riff feels intentional and carefully integrated. The vocal arrangements, including guest vocalists Sami yoik singer Johan Sara Jr. and Blackfeet tribe elder Kevin Kicking Woman, are very deliberate and thought out to fit every song. At a lean 41 minutes, it is the band’s second shortest record—their shortest being 1998’s Blodhemn in case you were wondering—but not a second is wasted.

Obviously the technical mastery is still very strong, and the band only keep getting better at making sprawling and hypnotic albums without taking longer than they should, but more importantly, they also know how to elicit strong emotions. Despite the proggy and avant-garde elements and incorporation of indigenous voices to further expand the musicality, this is still a great record to headbang to, to trip out and to sit with. There really is no limit to how you can engage with the music and it will definitely elicit an emotion, unless you don’t like metal or prog at all, in which case… fair, but also, seriously?

The band really nail adding krautrock and psych elements into their brand of extreme prog metal; it’s hard to explain but Enslaved have this unique talent of keeping a harsh and aggressive sound while adding gorgeous melodies, trippy atmosphere and everything sounds downright majestic, and again, it’s impressive that the band accomplishes this without the songs going past the 8-minute mark.

All in all, Enslaved continues their streak of great music that’s as aggressive as it is avant-garde; if you’ve always felt intimidated by overly-long songs, give this a spin, it might finally make prog click for you.