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The legendary Arcturus return after a nearly ten year hiatus with a long awaited new album, Arcturian.. A long running, symphonic black metal project that began in the early 1990s, Arcturus sport a cadre of musicians that holds as high a status in the pantheon of Norwegian black metal that one could hope to attain.

Founding members Skoll, Sverd, and Hellhammer need no introduction to fans of the second wave of Norwegian black metal, each having served time in bands as legendary as Ulver and Mayhem along with numerous other projects.

Long running guitarist Møllarn and none other than I.C.S. Vortex of Borknagar and Dimmu Borgir fame round out the current lineup, a lineup as solid as one can be.

Simply put, Arcturian is one of the best symphonic black metal albums to be released since Puritanical Misanthropic Euphoria from Dimmu Borgir in 2001; at least one released by a band with this high level of visibility.

Although Arcturus have been mostly known for a progressive, avant garde approach such as with albums such as La Masquerade Infernale from 1997, they’re at their best when applying just the right amount of bombast and melodies to what is probably best termed extreme metal more than anything else.

Case in point is the one two punch of “Arcturian Sign” and “Crashland,” the two songs to open Arcturian. Consisting of soaring melodies, blistering riffs, lots of bombastic synthesizers, and I.C.S. Vortex’s fabulous clean vocals, Arcturus strike just the right balance with all of the songwriting elements.

Subtle use of violins appears throughout “Crashland,” a standout track, and is expertly incorporated.

In lesser, less talented hands, the bombastic approach can easily descend into cheese or into an incoherent mess, but Arcturus’ musicians are more than skilled enough to pull it off with flair.

A few rougher moments do appear here and there, such as the blastbeats and the growled vocals that appear in “Angst,” but the focus soon shifts back to the melodies and other progressive elements. Songs such as “Warp” are about as good as one could hope for within this style, and Arcturus pay homage to their flirtations with electronica and other, non-metallic genres with a few weird, off kilter tracks such as “The Journey” and “Bane,” the album’s closer.

Arcturus, easily the best band in metal currently playing this style, have delivered a near masterpiece with Arcturian, an album that demonstrates that there is still life within the symphonic black metal subgenre, a subgenre largely given up for dead more than five years ago.

(released May 26, 2015 on Prophecy Productions)