Ihsahn, has come a long way from his Emperor beginnings. He’s grown into such a versatile musician its almost night and day between “In the Nightside Eclipse” (Emperors first album) and “Eremita”. It feels like Robert Rodriguez (director of Sin City & Planet Terror) did a metal album. Some parts of this sound like it would fit in with one of his movie scores perfectly.

With his fourth solo, Ihsahn still takes care of all the guitar, bass and keyboards, his wife, Heidi Tveitan (Star Or Ash, Peccatum) and Einar Solberg lend their superb voices to this album as well. Jorgen Munkeby's back with saxophone that just makes anything sounds dirty and smokey. This time around drums are handled Tobias Ornes Andersen (Leprous), who does a phenomenal job. It's also great to hear Devin Townsend (The Devin Townsend Project & Strapping Young Lad) and Jeff Loomis (ex-Nevermore) on this album since Ihsahn guessed on their respective albums over this past year.

This is Ihsahn’s most well rounded solo release to date. It shows you can grow as an artist without losing what made you who you were when you first started. I don’t think you'll find any filler on here. Its metal, bluesy, and progressive without being pretentious and that is a big plus. I will say the longer songs on here are the most powerful.

I'm a bigger Ihsahn fan than of Emperor, his solo work just interests me more. Possibly my favorite work of his is a band called Hardingrock (2007 album entitled “Grimen”, Ihsahn and Heidi did with folk fiddle musician Knut Buen), which is greatly over looked probably because it’s all sung in Norwegian. This albums full of highs and lows and anything else you can think of without saying “epic”. I dig the hell out of it. You should too, unless you’re one of those people who still think his best work was with Emperor.