Ihsahn

From a strictly musical perspective, Norwegian singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Ihsahn is among the most influential and celebrated personas in European black metal history. He textures his metallic and progressive tendencies with ambient, industrial, techno, classical, and found sounds. His style has evolved toward prog metal since playing with black metal pioneers Emperor. After the band's initial split in 2001 (they have reunited for festival tours and recordings), Ihsahn's early solo offerings showcased a jagged fusion of prog and black metal (The Adversary, angL, and After) that evolved into the wildly experimental (Eremita, 2012, and the improvised masterpiece Der Seelenbrechen in 2013). He came full-circle to mine a new vein of extreme prog rock on Arktis and Amr. In 2022, Ihsahn's solo work was collected in the massive The Hyperborean Collection MMVI-MMXX vinyl box set. He returned to studio recording with a conceptual, eponymously titled long-player in 2024.