ENTHRONED Xes Haereticum CD (2004)

Mid-era Enthroned is where the cult gets interesting. By 2004, the Belgians had survived lineup chaos, the death of founding drummer Cernunnos, and the usual black metal wilderness years, and they came out the other side with Xes Haereticum.

This is Enthroned settling into a darker, more deliberately paced groove than their early blastbeat-heavy records. The production is dense without being polished, the riffs carry genuine weight, and the Thelemic and Qabalistic imagery that would come to define their later work is starting to crystallise here. It sits in that sweet spot between raw and rehearsed that separates credible black metal from the performed version. A solid mid-period document for anyone mapping the evolution of European extreme metal through the 2000s.

Full length album, CD format, 2004. Part of Enthroned's core catalogue.

Fans of: Marduk, Dark Funeral, Gorgoroth, Immortal, Satyricon, Unlord.