Today's Friday classic comes from Norwegian black-metal masterminds Emperor. If you're in any way familiar with the BM genre, this band requires no introduction as they were undeniably one of the scene's most preeminent acts. Their full-length debut album "In the nightside eclipse" is one of my favorite metal records, but that's not where today's song comes from. Instead, I've chosen a b-side from the "Reverence" MCD, the disc that preceded the release of the much-anticipated follow-up record "Anthems to the welkin at dusk". This release marked a huge change in my opinion of Emperor, as it was the first time I considered them to be a real band and not some dark, unknowable force of nature. When I listened to "Nightside eclipse", I never could picture musicians in a room conjuring up such noise together, but the recording of the new material was much cleaner and emphasized the individual performances rather than washing them together in a huge whoosh of reverb. Then there was the video for "The loss and curse of reverence" included on the CD. That was definitely the final nail in the coffin. Once I saw Ihsahn in all his mustached, armored glory, there was no going back. The music was still amazing, but I could never regard them the same way again. But, like I said, the music remains - so here's "In longing spirit", a reworking of a much older song and probably one of the band's slowest and most doomy pieces. Hail the Emperor!