“It would be awesome to do it one night – the guys ask, ‘Where did he go?’ And I text them, ‘Couldn’t do it. Too nervous’”: Enslaved will be finished if Ivar Bjørnson stops getting stage fright

Enslaved 2022.

What unites a mysterious god said to be older than Odin, the motto of Blackadder’s General Melchett and a cross-country skiing blastbeat? The surprising answer is Heimdal, Enslaved’s 16th album, released in 2023. Just before its arrival, Grutle Kjellson and Ivar Bjørnson took Prog inside the masterpiece.

In Norse mythology, when the great and terrible Ragnarök arrives to lay waste to the Nine Realms, the gods will know the hour has come when Heimdall blows the Gjallarhorn to rally the warriors to the final battle. Heimdal, the 16th album from Enslaved, opens with the sound of that fabled horn – and the god who guards the Bifröst bridge casts a long shadow over the band’s career.