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Utgard is the fifteenth studio album by Norwegian extreme metal band Enslaved, released 2 October 2020 by Nuclear Blast.[1]

Utgard
Studio album by Enslaved
Released	2 October 2020 (2020-10-02)
Recorded	2019
Genre	Progressive black metal
Length	44:46
Label	Nuclear Blast
Producer	Iver Sandøy, Ivar Bjørnson, Grutle Kjellson
Enslaved chronology
E (2017) Utgard (2020)

Background

Utgard is the first Enslaved album with new drummer Iver Sandøy, who had previously co-produced several of the band's albums and joined full-time following the departure of longtime drummer Cato Bekkevold in 2018.[2] The album was originally scheduled for release in early 2020, but was delayed until October of that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[3][4]

The album is titled after a location in Norse mythology[5] and includes some Norse lyrics and song titles.[6] A video, filmed in Iceland, was released for the song "Jettegryta".[6] Utgard continues to display some of the band's early black metal roots while continuing their experimentation with 1970s progressive rock.[6]

Critical reception

The album received mostly positive reviews upon its release. Kerrang! noted that "Enslaved take the listener through a frightening landscape in Norse mythology where the gods have no control and chaos reigns" and called the band "masters" and "elder statesmen" of progressive black metal.[7] Blabbermouth noted that the album "feels like the true culmination of Enslaved's ascendancy to the throne of modern prog-metal wizardry."[5] The Prog division of Loudersound concluded that Utgard is the ultimate result of musical experiments that the band had been conducting over their past several albums.[8] In the words of Antihero, "Enslaved deliver their elite brand of Prog/Extreme Metal that they have so meticulously hammered out over the past three decades."[9] Metal Hammer named it as the 9th best metal album of 2020.[10]

Track listing

Personnel

• Ivar Bjørnson – electric guitars, acoustic guitars, synthesizers, keyboards, sequencer, FX, backing vocals (track 1)
• Grutle Kjellson – vocals, bass, synthesizer
• Iver Sandøy – vocals, drums, percussion, keyboards, FX
• Håkon Vinje – keyboards, piano, vocals
• Ice Dale – electric guitars, acoustic guitars, backing vocals (track 1)

Additional personnel:

• Martin "Bellhammer" Horntveth – percussion, synthesizers, glockenspiel, tubular bells, rototoms, programming (track 3)
• Inger Sunneva Peersen, Sonja Elisabeth Peersen – backing vocals (track 9)

Charts

Chart performance for Utgard

Chart (2020)	Peak position
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[11]	59
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[12]	162
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[13]	59
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)[14]	42
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[15]	30
Scottish Albums (OCC)[16]	48

References

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