Darkthrone - Astral Fortress (2022)

Each new Darkthrone studio album comes with the obligatory internet tug-of-war over why their new material is irrelevant, and they need to hang up the bullet belts; or why it's genius, and they're still treading some new ground. Here's the thing, though. Darkthrone doesn't give a fuck, and I have to agree with them. Yes, their material might been on an increasingly minimalist path of late, and some might construe that as lacking effort or 'phoning it all in', but it's not their first rodeo. That's exactly where they've been through so much of their career! Was Total Death complex, or The Underground Resistance revolutionary? They were cool because they held true to the band's ideals of slowly expanding and contracting its sound, tapping into primal influences across various metal sub-genres, and always infusing that with their own distinct personality. Astral Fortress is no different, and while it's got the most 'trolling' cover image in their entire discography, that's just another thing to admire about it. They don't always do what I expect, but 95% of the time so far it's turned out pretty damn awesome...

And it's awesome this time too, and that is why Darkthrone has my trust. Astral Fortress does conform a little to the blackened/doom vibe they've manifest through some of their recent albums, but this time they've got a warmer, more direct sound than on the eerier Eternal Hails... The riffs definitely feel like the sort the duo have written in the past, and across the seven tracks, they usually do a few per song, but MAN what riffs. "Impeccable Caverns of Satan" has those great, Sabbath-laden grooves to it, which work so well against Ted's constipated grunts, and the very simplistic Fenriz beats. "Stalagmite Necklace" opens with one of my favorite 'Throne riffs since forever, and the way the vocals echo off against the shuffle of the drums is just timeless, it feels like it could have hailed from any dark shed or sub-cellar of the last four decades, and the little synth touches are just perfect in enhancing the atmosphere. The most ambitious piece here is probably "The Sea Beneath the Seas of the Sea", with its ridiculous title and 10-minutes of evil, churning molasses riffs that once again bring to light that strong doom influence with not a small amount of the Celtic Frost/Hellhammer sound they were birthed on.

Almost all the other tracks deliver too, though if I had to pick the three I enjoyed the most, it would be those. The jangly noise interlude "Kolbotn, West of the Vast Forests" does feel extraneous, but in a weird way it feels like some breath of icy breeze is striking some strings or chimes out in the frigid environment of the cover photo, I just think it could have been better used as an intro that wound better into a proper metal track. They bounce back with the harmonic glazing of "Eon 2", another very good tune with a nice folksy surprise within, but it doesn't bring back any of the same tropes from the instrumental. Otherwise, the mix on this album is supreme...it's very bare and some might argue dry, but the way Culto's vocals hover off the simple riffing and timekeeping, lightly struck drums makes for an unexpectedly haunted experience. All the instruments sound good in isolation, though the bass as usual isn't an important factor, just thumping along enough to notice it. The guitar tone, the few acoustics, the drums, all adherent to the simplicity and effectiveness of their design, and Astral Fortress grants me what I so wish for every time I listen to this or any other black metal band...escape.

Maybe it doesn't throw me a lot of left field hooks like some of my favorite Darkthrone moments throughout their career...like hearing "The Winds They Called the Dungeon Shaker" for the first time on Dark Thrones and Black Flags, thinking 'what the fuck is going on?' and then gradually becoming so smitten that it's one of my favorite songs period. Or that earliest transition from the otherworldly, murky death metal of Soulside Journey to the icy Swiss-style nihilism of the sophomore, which seemed so unapproachable at the time but has long-since proven mandatory. Astral Fortress is not borne of such revelations, but it's another journey within that greater journey that I am privileged to be alive and take with two of the most honest, down to Earth dudes in all of metaldom. The most absorbed I've been with one of their albums in 15 years.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Darkthroneofficial/

Darkthrone - Eternal Hails... (2021)

Darkthrone has long been one of my favorite bands on Earth for a number of reasons, one of which is that you never know quite what they're going to put out next, and their unwillingness to constrain themselves into a particular niche these last 30+ years has kept them strangely refreshing. Granted, there are 'blocks' in the Norwegians' catalogue which all conform to particular ideals, and I'd say that their most recent three-album run of Arctic Thunder, Old Star and Eternal Hails... has been attempt to bridge back to the rudimentary black metal aesthetics that not only defined their most popular career phase, but impacted an entire genre that now numbers several generations. And yet they retain some of the speed, doom, heavy metal and punk diversions that they've been exploring on the way to get back here.

Eternal Hails... makes an interesting contrast to Old Star, because while that was quite a bold and well produced effort among their discography, this album seeks to repress that, quash the band back to their primitive roots, to smoosh together a lot of their varied styles into a recording that sounds like they could have just hashed it all out on a Friday night. The rhythm guitar tone has a very Hellhammer feel to it, if cleaned up a bit, and then they combine this with the tinny, raw drums and some heavily effected and just barbaric vocals circa Nocturno Culto. The perfect example of all this is "Hate Cloak", one of my favorite tunes on the album with its super-simple central doom riff that yet still feels like the aforementioned 80s precursor to the black metal genre. Another I really enjoyed was "Wake of the Awakened", which has a faster pace and sounds like a mashup of stuff you'd hear on Old Star and The Underground Resistance, an extremely basic riff that propels forward and then zones out into something more haunting and doomed. Or what about that mesmeric, atmospheric melody deep in the "Lost Arcane City of Uppakra"?

You really feel as if you've stumbled across some lost demo recording as you experience this, and though not every track hits the same, it's quite hypnotic overall, which was my first impression. This duo keeps on reinventing itself, on a lot of their albums they manage to sound like a band which has just discovered dingy, extreme metal for the first time and these are the initial thoughts that they've laid out after learning a few chord and beats. And that is what makes Darkthrone so uniquely special, they can put out a new record that sounds even more primitive than their formative death metal Soulside Journey and still kick ass, because of the sheer magnitude of their authenticity. Eternal Hails... is the rare album that blows me away by NOT blowing me away, but just letting me recount my own early teenage delvings into heavy metal with a frizzy mullet, a Kramer Striker, and a 10-watt amplifier in my parents' basement, the drums thundering away purely in my imagination. Its raw imagination transfused into evil sounding, neolithic heavy/doom/black/whatthefuckever metal.

No, it's not a crown jewel in their catalogue, in fact I'd rank it among their less impactful works, but its still important, because even as I might try to marginalize it against my favorites like A Blaze in the Northern Sky, Transilvanian Hunger, or Dark Thrones and Black Flags, I'm still transported to a place that this band and few others can take me, to the very core of why I love all this metal to begin with, and that's why it's ultimately just another victory for a team with one of winningest records in my CD collection.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (the fabric lies torn)

https://www.facebook.com/Darkthrone-101075189934422/

Darkthrone - Old Star (2019)

While Darkthrone's different 'phases' have cultivated individual audiences to themselves, some not too keen on the others, this is one band I've found enjoyable to follow wherever the wind would take them. From the frigid earnestness of their seminal death and black metal records through the nostalgia-tinged, often tongue-in-cheek side treks into punk, thrash, speed and heavy metal, they've always branded each album with their trademark personality, self awareness, and lyrics more clever than they might seem on the surface. I just don't feel as if they've ever failed me in this regard, and still get just as much pleasure listening through The Cult is Alive or Dark Thrones and Black Flags as I do A Blaze in the Northern Sky or Soulside Journey. In fact, I've long considered that they purposefully created their own counter-culture to the now-traditional necro black metal style they themselves were heavily influential upon, and I get a fat kick out of that.

Arctic Thunder stumbled for me a bit, not as a 'bad' record, but the first case in recorded memory where I felt some of the catchy nuances were missing, it didn't really string together the sort of personality that their earlier material thrived upon, with a lot of riffs that felt half-formed and just on the edge of catchiness without crossing it. Thankfully Old Star sets them right again, not a record bound for modern classic status, but a thoroughly consistent, enjoyable listen, especially at higher volumes, which sets out on a particular sonic path and then sticks the landing. While a lot of the initial reports and reactions I've read herald this as a 'return to form', meaning the band is back to its 90s black metal roots, I'm going to disagree there. Sure, you could place this back in around 1998 as a natural successor to Total Death and not sense that any major deviation to trajectory, but Old Star is heavily inspired by the classic heavy/doom metal riffing that they played around with on efforts like The Underground Resistance. Perhaps not quite so quirky or melodic, but it's given a more stolid and mighty countenance to create this huge, accessible sound. I'm not implying that you're about to hear Darkthrone cycling every half hour on your local corporate rock radio channel, but this one has a straight to the face, level production that many of its predecessors lack.

Everything sounds phenomenal, from Fenriz' simple, effective rock and roll beats and fills, through the dominant rhythm guitar tone, to Nocturno Culto's timeless, broad rasps and the lowly hovering bass lines, hardly adventurous but giving the rest of the mix just enough weight. I'd point out "The Hardship of the Scots" as a poster child for the aesthetic blend here, almost entirely a heavy/doom style track which busts back out into the Norwegians' Hellhammer-inspired churning and bending throughout the bridge. Others like "Duke of Gloat" go the opposite route, more or less a pure 90s throwback Darkthrone cut but with that same, formidable production pounding you in the skull. It's also astonishing how the band can still take a set of fairly stock, predictable riff patterns and then somehow refresh them just by putting their own touch, production and vocal style on them, and then whoosh, I don't feel like I've heard them all a hundred times before, even when I have. That's one hell of a skill for a band not renowned for anything bordering on technicality or complexity. It's also one of the reasons they've long been high up on the short list of my favorite bands ever, and if Old Star is any evidence, that status isn't going to change for a very long time.

Lyrically the album continues the pattern of simplistic verses containing clever little subversions, all wrapped up into song titles that you HAVEN'T heard a hundred times before, primarily in English, as usual these days, but with a handful of Norse lines. Granted, a lot of folks will probably never read them, but while they are far from poetic wizards, the grisly-yet-thoughtful layman's appeal to their words is among the best in the entire scene. If Chadwick St. John's cover artwork seems familiar, it's because he uses a similar, gruesome, detailed pencil-like style that you might recall from Grafvitnir's Obeisance to a Witch Moon or Arckanum's ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ. Great to see here and very fitting to the atmosphere of the six songs. Overall, Old Star is a step above Arctic Thunder and The Underground Resistance; the former because it left such a dry taste in my ears, and the latter because its handful of  genius tracks are counterbalanced by some of its more muddled ideas. This isn't the first Darkthrone CD I'm going to grab off the rack, but it's very well constructed, gets a little better with each of the initial listens, and if you're down for a mix of, let's say Total Death and Circle the Wagons, then I think you'll be more than satisfied.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]  (while Atlas cringes)

https://www.facebook.com/Darkthrone-101075189934422/

Darkthrone - Arctic Thunder (2016)

I've gotten at least a half dozen queries over the last nine months as to why I hadn't reviewed Darkthrone's Arctic Thunder, as I've always been so adamant on covering the rest of the Norwegians' output in the past. The answer to that is I just haven't wanted to admit to myself, or in any kind of official capacity to the public, that one of my favorite bands in the world, who I've consistently lauded for decades, from the traditional sound they are best known for, to the constant subgenre-hopping of their more recent work, had finally released a record...that, well...I didn't really like. Now, previous to this, I would have touted their prior full-length The Underground Resistance as my least favorite of their studio efforts, but at least with that one, I can say I love half the songs entirely, and the other half just had a few flaws which marred them. Arctic Thunder, on the other hand, doesn't inspire me in the slightest...and it's taken me this long to really hash out why, to go back and give it those many chances to prove itself, to find out what I'd been 'missing', which is something rare in my listening. Oh, it happens, just not terribly often.

Now, let me qualify that this is by no means a trainwreck of an album, and it possesses most of the hallmarks of what we come to expect from their sound. Simplistic songwriting, with 4-5 minute long songs, only a few riffs in each. Slightly more introspective interesting lyrics than you'd be expecting from your garden variety trad black metal, though nowhere near the band's most poignant, strange or whimsical. The production, while clean, is kept fairly raw, with the trashy but effective driving rock drums, the sincere but sinister guitar tones, and Nocturno Culto's unmistakable, potent rasping bark that is as fit as you've ever heard it, whether in short syllabic bursts or the more sustained growls that drift over the primacy of the riffing. Style-wise, we're no longer hearing some exploration into a new segment of traditional metal. No novelty speed, punk, thrash, doom, heavy metal, with the exception of how those niches' already intersect instrumentally or thematically, or how they've already appeared in the band's canon (the title track being a great example of this, with a heavy/black metal feel). This seems most intensively like a retrospective of the black and death roots the band was tugging at back in the early 90s, both as a warmup for their debut Soulside Journey and the raw, rustic black of their first few forays into that genre, then CHANNELED into the newer styles. The very narrow and minimalist range of chord progressions is highly reminiscent of stuff like Hellhammer, which so informed their earlier songwriting.

It looks inviting, with the dark woodland and sky, the fire crackling away, the logo displayed much as it was on Total Death, which once stood out for having the color artwork rather than the newsprint grimness. But this Arctic feels like it's populated by only the driest ice, the songs seem put together in the safest and least adventurous ways possible. It's not the first time I might have described one of their albums that way, mind you, but there was a particular darkness, novelty, and menace to older discs like Panzerfaust or Ravishing Grimness which immortalized them to my brain. Here, it seems like a couple of guys sitting around a campfire, dredging up memories of cutting room floor tunes that were a little too dull to incorporate on prior full-lengths, and then deciding to assemble them into one retrospective of work. All the pieces are functional, operate fluidly through the course of the disc, but just never manifest into truly worthwhile tracks. I often felt a little 'faked out', too, like in the tune "Throw Me Through the Marshes" where you get that cool, simple groove of the verse, but then it just never seemed as if it was capitalized on...the song doesn't effectively escalate beyond that point.

I probably liked the style on "Arctic Thunder" and "The Wyoming Distance" the most, if mainly because I liked how that blackened epic heavy metal chugging bore the bulk of NC's vocals, giving it the sickest, coolest contrast, but even there it seemed like the bridge sections needed something more to them to make them more compelling. Most of the eight tracks seem like earnest attempts at 'one hook' wonders, but those solitary hooks are simply not memorable enough themselves to unlock that achievement. To me, it really did feel like these were all just sort of assembled from scraps of ideas that weren't strong enough to appear elsewhere, and rather than 40 minutes of killer, we get about 30 minutes of filler surrounding the few passable guitars, and the solid vocal performance. Granted, this is still Darkthrone, and that half-hour of median material is something I'd probably listen to over a whole range of other, lesser bands.

Again, this is no disaster. No Diabolicus in Musica. No Load. No Risk. I wouldn't describe it as weak or, even painfully average, but after a dozen attempts to go back and re-invest myself, I can't deny that it's my least favorite of their full-lengths, and unlikely to get a lot of playtime here even compared to Underground Resistance, Plaguewielder, or Goatlord, the albums I would have previously considered on the lower rungs of their studio catalog, which only goes to enforce how summarily smitten I am with the band, because I dig all of those. Arctic Thunder is probably just a fluke for me, a one-off, a record whose specifics just didn't gel with the entertainment center of my brain. Here's hoping...

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10] (again the moon expires)

https://www.facebook.com/Darkthrone-101075189934422/

Darkthrone - The Wind of 666 Black Hearts (2016)

Do you long for those old tapes of yourself jamming in the garage or basement and laying it all down with a cassette or perhaps even a poorly-implemented 4-track recorder? Are you such a purist that only the rehearsals will do, that every band has officially sold out after its first demo or album? Do you like to hear the roots of black metal with none of the frills, none of the polish, none of the studio wizardry it took to pull off some of the genre's most successful records? The Wind of 666 Black Hearts has a lot of this in mind, and Peaceville Records is banking that enough of you will find at least a collector's item out of these Darkthrone rehearsals over two 12" records, priced reasonably enough as far as these bound-to-be collectibles are vomited out onto the market.

This is the majority of A Blaze in the Northern Sky and Under a Funeral Moon, or at least 10 of their 14 tracks, but in a cruder rehearsal form that lacks some of the frostbitten force you will have come to know from the studio incarnations. Raw, Hellhammer-spawned guitar lines moving at a moderate clip, back when that was their thing, back when they had switched out of death metal mode into a style that was quite new and fresh for the time, the same style that they would become royalty for over the ensuing decades. The guitars lack some of the coldness of the LPs, and the drums are even more tinny and crashy and amateurish, the vocals a paint-peeling rasp that appear less than you'll expect them to. Leads are an unwholesome mess. I did like that you could hear the bass, it gives the jamming a nice low end anchor and some contrast with the rawer rhythm tones, but on the whole I'd say that, at much as I love these songs on the albums, they seem a little less potent and atmospheric in this format, and I say that even as someone who is constantly dragging out such old demos and gladly ignoring their flaws in the name of nostalgia.

Only collectors and purists need apply here, especially if you want to hear the band with the lineup that included Dag and Zephyrous. This isn't just some dumpy compilation of pre-released album tracks being plucked at random and sold back to you, I'll grant it that, so there is some nostalgia in that it shows the band in the buff, at its most 'vulnerable'...as if these corpse-painted Scandinavian deviants could give a fuck about vulnerability. That said, I can think of no honest reason why I'd ever spin this over the 15+ good to great to perfect Darkthrone discs I've already got in my collection, all of which benefit from a better production and atmosphere. This is just such a sincere, raw band to begin with that an even more primal package like The Wind of 666 Black Hearts can't do it much justice, the songs lack that haunting and impressively defiant feel that I experienced when listening to them back in the dawn of the 90s, and it offers little more than history.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

Darkthrone - Burial Bliss/Visual Aggression 7" (2017)

This 7" should prove a tempting little collector's item for those interested in it's B-side in particular, a cover of Celtic Frost's "Visual Aggression" which was recorded with the former Darkthrone members Dag Nilsen and Ivar Enger, before the band was rendered down to the two-piece formation we've so come to know and love. To my knowledge I don't think this has been released on anything before, not as a bonus track on any of the full-lengths, not even on the myriad of compilations, worthless or worthwhile, that the band's labels have ground out through the years. It's paired up here with a mildly rawer take on "Burial Bliss", a track from their latest full-length Arctic Thunder, which I have surprisingly not yet reviewed, though that will be remedied soon.

So I'll cover this in reverse..."Visual Aggression" is a rough track, but far more potent than you'd expect from the era in which it was released, more formidable than your average lost rehearsal track or cutting floor demo, and probably wouldn't have been out of place on their death metal-oriented debut Soulside Journey. Now, it's no secret that Hellhammer and early Celtic Frost were a huge influence upon the Norwegians, both their formative death metal era and A Blaze in the Northern Sky, which could be described as a frostbitten Hellhammer taken to extremes, so to that extent this version of it is played almost too closely to the original, with the only mild disparity coming through the vocals and the bulkier mix of the guitars; but it's a nifty little piece of history regardless of whether one is going to listen to it much with the original available, and nearly any of Darkthrone's more interesting and awesome original tunes.

As for "Burial Bliss", I have to admit that it's possible this is my preferred mix for the song, a pure barbaric mid-paced crusher which is aesthetically flush with "Visual Aggression", just a little more bloody and rough-edged than the one they settled on for the full-length. It's not an amazing piece in of itself, but travels at a workmanlike pace that likely pleased a lot of fans of the old Panzerfaust or Total Death era Darkthrone, grim as fuck with no surprise twists anywhere in its five minutes. In terms of being consistent, it's actually one of the better songs they could muster to partner up with the cover, so as a result the 7" makes a lot of sense. That said, it's really not worth much if you're not in the market to collect...the cover doesn't justify itself beyond pure tribute, and the original, while a little harsher than on Arctic Thunder, is also not unique enough to go out of your way for. But if you collect everything they release, and yearn for those old, primitive days, it's borderline satisfactory.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Darkthrone-101075189934422/

Darkthrone - Black Death and Beyond (2014)

My initial reaction upon seeing another of these Darkthrone compilations was not a positive one. Beyond Preparing for War and the Frostland Tapes, they seem to have become an increasingly useless proposition to free the band's audience from some of their hard earned scratch, culminating with the inane and worthless Introducing Darkthrone, which as we all know sits gathering dust at the local record shop alongside Introducing Ricky Martin and the much sought after Introducing The Monkees. However, despite the level of bile rising in my throat every time one of my favorite bands is either served some rehashed anthology dreck, I am forced to swallow a glass of water with Black Death and Beyond because there are actually some touches of personal involvement with this LP set that might just make it worthwhile, at least for a collector, not necessarily for anyone who is first coming into their music; those individuals should immediately proceed to experiencing their full-length albums regardless of the media upon which they are printed.

No, there is nothing new musically on the recording, which still reduces its overall value enormously and bars it from becoming a mandatory acquisition, but how they've exactly ORGANIZED the tunes here is at least interesting. The 'Black', 'Death' and 'Beyond' in the title actually correspond to how they've arranged the chronological material, with one vinyl devoted to the earlier death metal years, another to the middle phase, exclusively raw black metal, and the 'Beyond' represents their later deviations towards punk, speed metal and ultimately heavy metal. It's a neat gimmick with which to parse out the band's stylistic mutations, and give the listener a little more uninterrupted immersion as if he/she were listening to a Darkthrone album of a particular niche. Past that, you can also tell by the song selection that Fenriz was actually more involved in the selection, since this is not just some 'best of...' arrangement with the band's 'better known' material, but a mix of the more popular ragers and the obscure. As invested as I am in the majority of their discography, which features very few tunes that I do NOT adore, it's still quite affirming to find that the creators themselves hold tracks like "The Wind They Called the Dungeon Shaker", "Graveyard Slut" and "The Ones You Left Behind" in such regard. That's not to say it's an 'ultimate collection', because that would require the band just releasing a 16-LP box set which I would possibly sell a few organs on the black market to acquire. But there's a bit more qualification here than just 'throw a bunch of random songs together'.

Even better than that, the set comes with an excellent, lavish book loaded with photos, biographical info, interviews of the band and others, and this is something that should sell like hotcakes even if separated from the boxed set (no idea if it will be). I can't attest to the book alone covering the value of the entire purchase, but this is something deserved and that I'm sure a lot of us were waiting for. Fenriz and Culto are nothing if not constantly entertaining personalities, and there are even some words with the old bassist Dag Nilsen in there. Yet another component which keeps this release hovering over the edge of the fire, though I fear with only about 3000 copies in circulation, not enough of the audience will be able to get their hands on it (maybe a separate physical release or a .pdf floating around could fix that). Of course that assumes more than 3000 people actually desire to read such a thing, but if not then the state of the world is far sadder than we thought. In the end, an additional disc with a bunch of unreleased or exclusive material would have padded out the deal and made this far more mandatory, but the addition of the book, and the minimum of effort arranging the musical content protect this from the typical artillery shelling such compilations deserve. Is it still a Peaceville profiteering sham? To an extent, and $70-80 US is steep for a bunch of music you likely already own, but the track selection flows well through the discs, and there is at least a qualifying 'cool factor' to compensate. But buy it for the book, or not at all.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

http://www.peaceville.com/darkthrone/theundergroundresistance/

Darkthrone - Introducing Darkthrone (2013)

Recall2CD is apparently no misnomer, because the imprint brand, a sub label of the Snapper Music family (which also includes Peaceville and KScope), is dedicated wholly to issuing two-disc collections of reprinted material spanning the careers and catalogs of acts associated with the sister and parent labels. So, along with Introducing Darkthrone we've had Introducing Katatonia, My Dying Bride and so forth and really you get the gist of it. The fact that these releases have been relegated to a separate imprint is telling, though, they've been set up more or less as '101 courses' for new listeners, with basic biographical information enclosed, a visual catalog of the band's albums available through the label, and you can pick it up either on CD or MP3 at a normal price...

...and that's the rub, because priced at $2-3 dollars, or better yet FREE streamed/digitally, Introducing Darkthrone wouldn't be a horrible access point for someone first exploring black metal, or this band in particular, to get a chronological perspective of how Fenriz and Nocturno Culto first instituted and then later changed up their game across about 25 years. It's entirely dispensable, and 18 tracks is in NO FUCKING WAY going to do any justice to a discography which includes 16 full-length albums and numerous EPs to boot! Previous Darkthrone collections like Preparing for War and the Frostland Tapes proved worth the while for the avid consumer, because they were comprehensive or included something of value (a nice DVD, a thorough selection of the band's unavailable demo recordings, etc), but the material here isn't re-recorded, or particularly equalized, or anything to 'refresh' it. Which, honestly, would be a 'no-win' situation, since the point of something like this is to show how the band's sound had evolved in their many different phases.

Suffice to say, Darkthrone is an important band, and a mere smattering of cuts cannot aptly represent their appeal. Each of their individual full-length albums casts a particular shadow, establishes a mood that in my estimation usually requires complete immersion to appreciate. Sure, they've got a handful of the more fun and obvious, 'bubblegum' writing present in their punk and speed metal numbers of the last decade, and these are immediately catchy, but then they only represent the last five tracks on the compilation (and exclude the latest album The Underground Resistance). Using "Cromlech" alone as an introduction to their death metal material, or single song selections from some of the most important recordings in the entire genre like A Blaze in the Northern Sky, is simply not going to cut it, and as much as I worship Dark Thrones and Black Flags, I'm not sure why it nets two inclusions while an ageless, fundamental work like Transilvanian Hunger nets just one. Personally, I find them both equally entertaining, but there can be no question which is the more influential and critical for a new listener to comprehend...

It'd be pretty difficult to rattle off names of Darkthrone tracks that I don't enjoy, so naturally I don't have much of an issue with the choices here, and they all still sound as great as they did when I first heard them (testament to the timelessness of their aesthetic choices), but in context I feel that many of their records are better experienced in 'blocks', where the raw tone and overwhelming bitterness don't disappear after a few minutes, so in no way could I recommend this in a time where a curious party has the means to instantly acquire any and all of the content and then some (whether legally or not), and the same could be said for the other collections being put out through Recall2CD. Reeks of Roadrunner's old practices with their death metal bands in the 90s. The packaging is nothing special, the biography is old hat to anyone who already knows the band, and it all seems vaguely like a tactless retread meant to bilk a few pounds/dollars from some suckers. If you are one such individual, then feel free to skew my review score up to 30-40%, since you're still not going to behold enough of the real, emotionally draining depth of the earlier work or the mockingly rocking nostalgia of their later catalog to matter.

As for myself, Introducing Darkthrone is utter tripe, and the materials used in pressing these collections would have been better used in fashioning prosthetic limbs for amputees or plastic sippy drinks for school children. 'But I can play it at parties, or weddings!' Fuck RIGHT OFF. You wanna get someone into Darkthrone? Grab a flask of whiskey or equivalent, at least one of their full-length albums, and a boombox; take the prospective listener to a defaced local castle/landmark (graffiti preferred) or a woodland or park littered with abandoned automobiles and other social detritus. The closer to winter, the more effective. Take a swig and trade off. Apply volume liberally. Bonfires or oil-drum-fires welcome. If that doesn't work, then the subject doesn't really deserve to listen to Darkthrone. Try Katy Perry instead.

Verdict: Epic Fail [Woe/10]

http://www.peaceville.com/darkthrone/theundergroundresistance/

Darkthrone - The Underground Resistance (2013)

You love them. You hate them. You used to enjoy them, but now you cannot stand them. Flip the script. Few bands get both the hackles and beers raised as often as Darkthrone, and it seems each new release is a theatrical event missing only the popcorn. Thankfully, due to the advent of the microwave oven, we can rectify this. 'Goddamnit, I fuckin' loathe these poseurs and sellouts', quoth the twenty something armchair hack who fancies himself a 1st-2nd generation black metaller, who hates and trolls the world, privately wishing he had the time machine to back his claim. As if the notion of a band like this, with a long history of obscure and inaccessible audio recordings behind them, incorporating influences from music no one at large really gives a shit about, somehow justifies the claim that they're in it for the money, or they're 'artistic failures' because they tried to match two different shoelaces on their latest sneaker line. Hey, Vlad, how about you go troll some panties? Or some boxer briefs (I wouldn't wanna presume...). I'm not asking that you step out into the sunlight or anything drastic, but it might be time to harden the fuck up, take out the fake fangs, brush off the dandruff and church ashes, and get yourself a ghoulfriend (or equivalent).

Newsflash: musicians change. Bands change. It's a kinetic universe. Even the planets are fucking moving. Even the dead ones. You either change with them, change of your own accord, or you stagnate. 'I'll gladly take stagnant over something...different!' Really? I was wondering where that smell was coming from. Yeah, I realize that Motörhead somehow scored itself an exemption clause to this rule, but Nocturno Culto and Fenriz have been evolving, devolving, and sidestepping for well over 20 years now, and to their credit, just about every choice they've made has proven pretty entertaining. Ever since I first picked up a copy of Soulside Journey on cassette, wholly ignorant of what the future would bring, theirs was a journey worth signing up for. In fact, I can say without any hesitation that I've enjoyed every Darkthrone record to date. Yes, even Goatlord. Even Plaguewielder. And, yeah, the 'punk' years, the 'speed metal' years, when the death-gone-black duo started digger into their record collections, and expanding their quest for inspiration beyond their copies of Deathcrush, Morbid Tales, Under the Sign of the Black Mark and Apocalyptic Raids 1990 AD. So be it. Without this period of experimentation, I wouldn't have gotten Dark Thrones and Black Flags, one of my favorite of all their works, and one of my favorite metal albums of the 21st century to date.

Darkthrone has gotten goofier. More endearing. Self-referential, beyond a doubt. They're not putting out records like A Blaze in the Northern Sky anymore (they've been there and done that). Neptune Towers is ancient history. The Underground Resistance is perhaps the friendliest record these two have released beneath this moniker, and as billed, it continues to carve out the members' nostalgia for antiquated metal by mashing it into their Celtic Frost-ed fundamentals and seeing what happens. Sure, to some degree this is influenced by Fenriz' fanaticism for the sounds of the 80s. His roots love. His 'bands of the week'. But you have to give these two credit: through the process of retroactive evolution, they're churning out something refreshing and welcome. Just about everyone with a pulse who pays attention to metal news heard all the presages and doomsayers about how they'd be searching for an 'epic heavy metal' style after the largely speed metal-inspired Circle the Wagons. In truth, while there are faint whiffs of early Manowar, Thor, Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, and post-black/thrash Bathory, this fruit actually doesn't fall far from its 2010 tree. Surprisingly, the more 'epic' this record got, in terms of the more baseline heavy metal riffs and sillier clean vocals, the less I actually liked it...

Which leads me to a shocking conclusion, well before the actual conclusion: The Underground Resistance is the first Darkthrone studio album I would not qualify as 'great'. It's 'good', and I've been having a blast listening to half the tracks here, but certain overlong numbers and one particularly weak (if well intended) tune create a lot of inconsistency whenever I'm listening through in the proper order. I dug that they'd returned to the 'less is more' philosophy of their formal years (having first evolved into their black metal sound), but it's a double edged sword. With just six songs, you've got to fire on all cylinders, and I felt that the album's decision to back load its bloated content gave it a lopsided feel. Not that the cleverly titled "Leave No Cross Unturned" doesn't have its moments, but it sure as shit doesn't have fourteen of them, and even the superior "Come Warfare, The Entire Doom" could have used a slight hedge clipping. Not because the riffs are lacking, or that they've not pulled off some lengthy tunes in the past, but these don't exactly pad themselves out in any meaningful way. I kept waiting for buried thrills, and found none.

Yet the primary offender, "Valkyrie", comes earlier on in the proceedings. This, more than any other, is an honest attempt to create that epic heavy metal feel so publicized by the band and its slathering fans. It's the furthest from the Darkthrone comfort zone, in that it consists of pure speed/heavy metal with some doom and punk elements. No blackening. Fenriz' vocals throughout are almost entirely clean (there are some raving, harsher barks to give it personality), and unfortunately rather tuneless. I get what he was going for, and these sorts of quirky hooks worked for him in Isengard or on earlier 'throne tunes like "The Winds They Call the Dungeon Shaker", but there is nothing in there to snag me, and coupled with the really bland and boring guitar melodies and the rather underwhelming chord progressions, it fails to leave an impact in the midst of harder, Culto-fronted crushers like "Dead Early" and "Lesser Men". That's another thing, too. The N.C. sounds so goddamn good through this record, his ravenous T.G. Warrior-like rambling so archaic, like a tomb opening after a century of neglect, that the cleans sound absolutely ludicrous in contrast...

That's not to say they're all a bust, because on "The Ones You Left Behind" the biting cleans are delivered with a grisly harmonic arrangement that works in the context of the song, but it seems as if too little emphasis was put on making them consistently catchy. In terms of the riffs, there are easily a good dozen or so on the disc that stick out, like the blistering, full-bore speed metal stylings in "The Ones You Left Behind", "Come Warfare, The Entire Doom" or "Dead Early". Nothing revolutionary, mind you, and in truth if you heard them on any obscure heavy metal record from the early to mid 80s you might just ignore them, but it's how they mix and match them with their slower, muscular Celtic Frost grooves that creates variety and balance. The highlight for me personally was the melody embedded into the bridge of "The Ones You Left Behind", which just hit me from nowhere and had me pressing the repeat button numerous times. The grand finale, "Leave No Cross Behind" also has some real scorchers in their, but I think the ideas might have been better served in 2-3 separate, shorter tunes, because they don't seem to transitional all that smoothy or emotionally.

In addition to Culto, who has really been on fire of late with this and his work in Sarke, the production is an obvious highlight. The guitars are enormous, with great reverb on the melodies and in the chords themselves that attain the larger than life, airy aesthetics of 80s metal. This is one zephyr primed for headbanging. The drums are crystal clear while retaining that live studio quality most of their records are known for, and the bass is copious. Corpulent. Not always written well, since most of the lines fall behind the rhythm guitar and stay there, but at least you can feel that low end once "Dead Early" picks up momentum, and it never ceases whenever the riffs are pounding along. I may personally prefer some of their darker mixes from the 90s, because I tend to enjoy the nuances (and even the sloppiness) of those grimy and formative years, but those seeking a blast of in the face heavy metal will not be disappointed by how fulsome and level The Underground Resistance sounds at any volume. As for the lyrics, they're as usually pretty good, trying to come off 'dumber' than they really are, but packed with striking images that makes you think (the one exception being "The Ones You Left Behind" which is more about shouting and rhyming the 'ing' suffix).

Ultimately, this album would have been a lot better without "Valkyrie", and with "Leave No Cross Unturned" chopped and rearranged into two different songs, but I still had a good enough time that I don't feel my money was ill spent. Of course, I'm an incalculable manwhore for this band and their side projects, so your own mileage may vary, but if you loved the shit out of Circle the Wagons then it's a safe recommendation. I didn't get a whole lot of the Manilla Road/Omen flavor I was sort of expecting, and there aren't any tunes as infectious as a "Hiking Metal Punks", "Eyes Burst at Dawn", or "...Dungeon Shaker", but its worth it just to listen to N. Culto's howling and a stellar mix redolent of rhinoceros-driven chariots across a Roman Empire battlefield. Or were they elephants?! Regardless, if you're on the way to pick this up and you happen to see Imperator Vlad of the Flat Earth Black Metal Society hiding out in the shade of a tree or awning, buy the guy a cheeseburger or some bus fare. You'll be alright, buddy. The world's moving on. Here's a ticket.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (vaporizing intellectual leftovers)

http://www.peaceville.com/darkthrone/theundergroundresistance/

Darkthrone - Sempiternal Past: The Darkthrone Demos (2011)

Does the world really need another re-release of the Darkthrone demos? That really all depends on how much of a fanatic one has become for the band, or whether or not one finds particular format more appealing than the previous conditions under which they were issued upon the niche audience. A handful of years ago, in 2008, Peaceville put out the 21st anniversary collection Frostland Tapes which included all the material in a rougher form, on three CDs packed with extras. Even earlier than that, the Preparing for War collection included a number of the demo tracks though in a less sequential, incomplete package. So really, it's hard not to think of Sempiternal Past: The Darkthrone Demos as a bit of a redundancy despite the decision to remaster and restore the material with the best possible quality. Even the cover art has already been used...

However, if one had not previously acquired those earlier compilations, then Sempiternal Past is a great way of gathering the demos in one place in their proper, chronological order. As hinted, they audio has been better flushed out from the original source tapes here, and so even their most primordial, amateurish compositions like "Forest of Darkness" from the 1988 Land of Frost demo feels more brazen and fulfilling with the filtered, odd vocals and drudging, primitive riffs. I feel that personally the drums sound a little better, and even the guitars, though I've never been a huge proponent for these earlier tapes as they offered nothing more than groundwork for the Norwegians to establish the later, death metal style of Soulside Journey. There's also the fact that, well, do compositions as prehistoric as these of Land of Frost or A New Dimension even NEED to be brushed up? Doesn't the very base nature of their sound on the prior collections or even just tracking down filthy digital versions sort of lend to their charm? I don't necessarily see the point of polishing a turd if the very charm of it was the stench to begin with...

But then, on the other hand, Sempiternal Past feels like the 'de facto' format with which to experience the material. Whether you've got the vinyls or the CD set, the demos are carefully laid out in order without arbitrary interference from rehearsals or other bits. There are bonus tracks included after the four demos, including the two 1989 live performances that were aired on television in Oslo ("Soria Moria Slott" and "Eon/Thulcandra" medley). But then, anyone with the special edition of Preparing for War already experienced them. Probably the best part of Semptineral Reign is having the track "God of Disturbance and Friction" for your collection, but then this is a pretty average piece with standard Celtic Frost inspired, mid-paced chords and rasping that isn't among their better written, or more sinister executions.

Ultimately, with two previous collections available with three discs each, I didn't come away from this feeling as if I'd gotten anything new or important. None of the demo material is capable of superceding the album incarnations (where applicable), and neither does the skimpy bonus material impress. If you don't already have the Frostland Tapes, and you're looking to complete your Darkthrone collection or replace whatever dubs or rips you have of the old demos, then this is an acceptable solution (and maybe bump my rating up a notch or two). It's not like Fenriz, Culto and Peaceville just regurgitated this to turn a buck, some effort was used in refinishing the levels of the mix and giving you a version they were happy with you hearing. But I didn't end up enjoying these particular tunes more than past exposures, and thus my preference remains with Preparing for War as it had that sweet DVD, or especially Frostland for that added instrumental disc. If you're ever faced with the choice, just be forewarned what you'll be getting in each case. I'm sure the double vinyl will at least prove collectible since that format is all the rage right now.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

http://www.peaceville.com/bands/2194

Darkthrone - Circle the Wagons (2010)

Of all the many metal bands in the universe, there are an immense number that I enjoy, but far fewer that I consider myself such a fanboy as to 'line up' for. Or to eagerly anticipate the dropping of each album. Darkthrone is one of those bands. I'll watch or read the band's interviews in advance of the next album. I'll download the cover art and set it as wallpaper. I'll download the samples. I'll order the CD. I'll order the vinyl. And it all stems from how reliable the band has been in their delivery over the past 20 years. No rock star pedestal. No trends. No nonsense. Just two guys recording metal albums that are important to them, and typically also important to me. They've made slight developments in their formula through the years, and I've hung along for each and every transition, because I trust the band completely and they rarely fail to impress me.

2008's Dark Thrones and Black Flags was my favorite metal album that year, and it's one I still have playing in a fairly frequent rotation today. From the self-referential lyrics to the amazing fabric of the vocals and riffs (the first few ringing guitar lines of "The Winds They Called the Dungeon Shaker" are all you need to sample to hear just how fantastic that album was), I was hooked, and I really consider it one of their very best efforts alongside the classics like Transilvanian Hunger and A Blaze in the Northern Sky (with many others close behind). For their 15th album, Circle the Wagons, they have come up with both an intriguing and original title and cover concept, with a Native American theme that seems somewhat unusual. This aesthetic is primarily reflected in the title track and cover art, however, as the lyrics cover a variety of topics and more of the band's poorly veiled references to metal music at large.

The biggest distinction to this new album is that the band have slightly shifted away from the more punk-dominated songwriting of F.O.A.D. and Dark Thrones and Black Flags towards an infusion of classic metal riffing and primordial thrash. But if you enjoyed those albums, fear not, because the sound here is much the same, there's still a touch of the punk energy, and the band continues to share the vocal duties. What's more, the band have taken their occasional use of clean vocals to a new height here, as in the title track, which serves as another metaphor for the band's path, with some extremely entertaining dual clean vocals that make for one of the most memorable bits on the album. The guitars, too, are notably derived more from a wider host of muddy, primal 80s heavy and thrash metal influences than the usual Celtic Frost/Bathory blood that has steadily beaten through Darkthrone's heart for decades.

Unlike Dark Thrones and Black Flags, I didn't quite take to every single song on this album. It's a little disappointing, and it doesn't really belong in the top tier of the band's discography. But it's still a lot of fun to listen through, and several of the tracks are exceptional. "Stylized Corpse", one of the darker songs on the album, and perhaps the closest to some of the band's older, 90s material, was one of my early favorites, with its slow escalation of the grooving Hellhammer inspired verse rhythm and the dense jangling of the bridge riff. There are also some killer breakdowns waiting within, one leading to a majestic and minimal melodic tension. "Black Mountain Totem" is also huge for its unforgettable plucky thrashing and the disturbing, decaying vocals of Nocturno Culto, spackled in speed metal fervor. "Eyes Burst at Dawn" is another rager, with some amazing, manly clean vocals ala "Dungeon Shaker" from the previous album, and some of the best melodic riffing on the album (that bridge kills). And it would be foolish to not mention "Bränn Inte Slottet", a very different instrumental track which begins with ritual drumming over a looped chanting sample, then picking up into simple but effective old school metal riffs akin to the rest of the album, and a little taste of doom.

A few of the other tracks also satisfy, though not as strongly. "Running for Borders" has a cruel twist to the guitar rhythms that builds a strong momentum under the vocals, and "I Am the Working Class" shakes out just enough punky perspiration to inspire. As for the opener "Those Treasures Will Never Befall You", I enjoyed it enough as a light appetizer, but aside from the great bridge section with the somber guitar melody and the raging bass pomp, it didn't sink in as deeply into my skin. The same goes for "I am the Graves of the 80s", which seems like a fun enough tribute with some soaring, clean vocals, but failed to blast me out of my seat. "Circle of the Wagons" itself did little for me with its punk momentum, but the clean vocals are at least entertaining, especially hearing just how far these guys wanted to take it this time.

Yet, I still find myself singing along, even to these. And despite my failed connection with a few of the tunes, it's still a Darkthrone album. As many of us are aware, even on its worst day this band is more impressive than nearly anyone else releasing records in the 21st century. That they've so successfully let the trends of the past 15-20 years slide off their armor and kept their career afloat is a testament to both their devotion to sounds that never quite should have died, and to the fans who still celebrate them above all the awful, modern setbacks that metal has suffered (nu metal, soulless tech death wankery, commercial metalcore, bad thrash throwbacks, hipster coffee shop metal, and so on). Circle the Wagons is immensely enjoyable, provided you are open to the band's adventures and don't care that it's not a direct re-write of Under a Funeral Moon. There's no "Hiking Metal Punks", "The Winds They Called the Dungeon Shaker" or even a "Witch Ghetto" here. But some of the songs are mighty close. It's like a 'bases loaded' situation, with a few single hitters driving up the score, rather than the outright home run with everyone screaming from the rafters that I felt of the last album.

Highlights: Stylized Corpse, Black Mountain Totem, Eyes Burst at Dawn, Bränn Inte Slottet, Running for Borders

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (don't fucking care, move on)

http://www.peaceville.com/darkthrone/circlethewagons/

Darkthrone - F.O.A.D. (2007)

Judging by the increased speed by which they are releasing new material (their most productive period since the early to mid 90s), it's become clear that Darkthrone are quite happy with the new direction they've taken. The Cult is Alive was only the loading station, and with F.O.A.D. (you know what it stands for) the band would move further down the tracks into a new territory. Yes, this album represents the biggest change in the band since they dropped the death metal and got their black on in the dawn of the 90s, and yet, it remains strangely loyal to all the band has accomplished to date. Change is never a bad thing so long as its a well planned departure, and the decision to let the classic metal and punk influence play a more central role to the songcrafting has opened up a new realm of possibilities.

There are a surprising number of subtleties here, through the guitars in particular, which might not have been possible on another Transilvanian Hunger or Hate Them, and the rock focus here really leads the band into a fertile pasture. They've already mastered black metal, several times in fact, so what more could they do with it? This is your answer. Equipped with the new 'Mr. Necro' mascot on the cover (Deathhammer logo in tow) and a new approach to their lyrics which is at worst forcibly silly and at best pretty cool, they strap on for nine new tracks that run the gamut from the vile and muddled to the spry and wistful.

"These Shores are Damned" is a superb opener, with a graceful, classic sense for melody translated through subtle speed metal rhythms and groovy drumming (not unlike something Deceased might write). When Culto begins to bark out the verse, though, it shifts back to a pure, rocking Darkthrone rhythm, and there's a great, popping melodic lick which breaks out before 2:30 in the track which transforms it all into so much more. "Canadian Metal" is a pretty amazing song, making better use of their Hellhammer-inspired rhythmic slamming chords than they've had in years. The lyrics are a little hokey, but fun, as they name-drop a bunch of song titles from Canadian legends like Razor, Piledriver, Sacrifice and Slaughter. Being that I'm a pretty big fan of several of these bands, it is hard not to applaud the tactic, though I haven't enjoyed bands using it before (I remember Seven Witches doing something similar and it sucking awkwardly). At any rate, the song itself smokes. "The Church of Real Metal" follows, and while part of me thinks the band might be taking this too far, the song itself is actually not some shallow Manowar-athon, but a brooding and dimly lit doom rock anthem with some great, depressive atmosphere created through the melodic guitars (and I think a synth is in there). The term 'metal' is only uttered with the actual song title, as the chorus, so it could have been much worse...

"The Banners of Old" is another track in which you can hear a clear influence from doom bands like Sabbath, Black Widow and so forth, but it quickly spins into a groovy, grinding speed/death riff which is extremely catchy, as Culto's thick vox slobber all over it. "Fuck Off and Die" is loud arena mayhem rock, similar to AC/DC but with an even more bluesy twist to it, with Fenriz performing some corny and soulful vocals that slowly pull you in, even if you don't want them to. There's a nice, melodic doom break in the middle, one of the best riffs on the entire album. "Splitkein Fever" has a quiet, thumping beat layered in churning, grungy gothic deathpunk guitar lines, and it's quite effective with the lyrics, though the 'flies to a pile of shit' cliche did come across a little forceful.

I have my world here
You think you are right
But you can't touch me here
The forest is cold and white

"Raised on Rock" is probably the "Too Old, Too Cold" for this record, the true anti-poseur anthem. Some might find the lyrics a little too blunt and obvious, but that had to have been the point here, and the raw vocals and dark punk rock riffing make it all quite sinister. "Pervertor of the 7 Gates" is big doom metal, and here Fenriz puts a ghastly twist on his Tom G. Warrior vocal aping, though the hooks alone are not the best you'll find on this record. F.O.A.D. goes out on a high note with "Wisdom of the Dead", one of the most beautiful tracks the band has written in years, with a soaring death melody and a slowly grinding central rhythm that gives way to a morose, necrotic atmosphere, and some further melodies that arrive and dazzle later in the song. Even if I were to ignore the rest of the record, this song alone is proof positive that Darkthrone's new direction is a success, because where on one of the previous albums would you hear this? Possibly on Total Death, but the production would be far different.

F.O.A.D. is a fantastic album, but even at its apex, it is still only the footprint for the giant boot in the ass masterpiece to come in the following year, Dark Thrones and Black Flags, the band's first flawless work since Transilvanian Hunger. But there are 6-7 songs here that belong on any Darkthrone playlist, from the hell fueled "Canadian Metal" to the more lurid "Wisdom of the Dead" or "The Church of Real Metal", or even the balls deep "Raised on Rock" and "Splitkein Fever". This is some pretty intriguing shit, and honestly, if even the most stubborn expatriates of the Darkthrone camp could set aside their crockety old badger dispositions for 40 minutes, they would find something here they might really enjoy, even if just in fun.

Highlights: These Shores are Damned, Canadian Metal, The Church of Real Metal, Raised on Rock, Wisdom of the Dead

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (the rite of being free)

http://www.myspace.com/officialdarkthrone

Darkthrone - The Cult is Alive (2006)

Enter the birth of Punkthrone. Perhaps I exaggerate here, but it was clear from the mild stagnation of (the still excellent) Sardonic Wrath that some sort of change was once again inevitable in the Northern camp, and The Cult is Alive, LP #12, is where this would begin to really take place. Now, the band has always admittedly carried the punk, rock and classic heavy metal influences through their career, wearing them boldly upon their sleeves, but never has it been more obvious than the tonal shift taken with this album. Not only through the music itself, but the extremely blunt punk lyrics on a few of the tracks which are at once self-deprecating and scathing critiques of what the 'black metal' scene had lost sight of, in addition to celebrations of the very art Darkthrone had mastered numerous times already in a single career...

But if you're worried that the band has lost their identify, fear not, because this entire album still fits snugly into the black metal realm, with the same raw Culto vocals you've come to expect, and a slew of riffs which do naught but honor the roots of the genre, plus the thrash, punk and heavy metal from which it evolved. For an early comparison, think of Brazil's Sarcofago. For a modern comparison, think of Joel Grind's Toxic Holocaust, who has been creating a more frenetic mesh of these aesthetics for years. The Cult is Alive does not sound quite as fast or crazy as either of those, but you get the general idea.

"The Cult of Goliath" begins with a barbaric rhythm reminiscent of some of the songs from Ravishing Grimness, with a savage thrust to its verse that is wholly violent slaughterpunk, and I love the breakdown, which is pretty rock & roll, with a lame but lovable guitar solo. Speaking of the rock, "Too Old, Too Cold" was already known to most, having its own EP release a few months before this full-length arrived. It's black punk rock, Hellhammer meets the Ramones, with some lyrics that, while a little awkward, pretty much encapsulate the feelings of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto towards the ever propagating scene of black metal hipsters, armed with irony and designs on exploitation. While fun, the song is actually not one of the better offerings on the album, and aside from the rather open lyrical call to arms, I'm not sure why it was chosen as a single over some of the others. "Atomic Coming" is far more of a bruising hymn, with blistering old school speed/thrash riffs that herald annihilation, congealing well with the crushing chords of the black/punk foundation.

Prepare your swollen apathy
Or forge numerous sturdy platforms
Behemoth tankers of mankind
Are now leaking nuclear fear

"Graveyard Slut" had also been released on the Too Old, Too Cold EP before the album dropped, but this is the version with Fenriz' 'Tom G. Warrior' style vocals. The song is highly entertaining, conjuring up nostalgia for teenage years of getting drunk, vomiting all over your denim jacket with all the great patches, and desperately failing to win the affections of that one semi-cool girl in your school who you mistakenly feel might accept you, even though you managed to get the car for that one Friday night. Oh, the pain! "Underdogs and Overlords" returns to the Culto vocal, and the second riff here is total asskicking blackened rock'n'roll, a groove that Thin Lizzy or Iron Butterfly might have conceived had they actually known and coveted the face of evil. "Whiskey Funeral" reaches even further back, grabbing and blackifying a raw rock'n'roll foundation, foreshadowing pretty much the entire Dark Thrones and Black Flags album. It's pretty damn cool, with a searing speed/thrash bridge rhythm and a nice melodic collapse before returning to the speed.

For the next two tracks, Darkthrone remembers that they are in fact Norwegian. "De Underjordiske (Ælia Capitolina)" leaps between the languages, a grimy, flowing rocker with bright chords that make Culto sound all the more menacing. "Tyster På Gud (Preemptive War)" opens as total hardcore punk, which falls somewhere between Discharge and Minor Threat in tone, with a little of the band's guitar bending chagrin', and a Hellhammer-ing breakdown. "Shut Up" is actually one of my favorites on the album, despite the rather no-brainer song title, with some excellent, filthy rocking rhythms and amazing vocals which ooze unbridled aggression. The fuzzy solo is quite cool, and the clamoring bridge hook, but believe it or not, there is also quite an amazingly dark black/death metal rhythm here as well. "Forebyggende Krig" was the 2nd single for the album, a more traditional black/doom rhythm piece that venerates the previous albums of Darkthrone such as A Blaze in the Northern Sky.

The Cult is Alive doesn't start off all that great, but it certainly picks up steam as it progresses through the track list. "The Cult of Goliath" and "Too Old, Too Cold" are passable, but I had already heard the latter a number of times and was beginning to get tired on it. Once the album hits "Atomic Coming", the rest is basically sheer bliss, and Darkthrone perfectly translates the more widespread influence of punk and rock into their sound without losing the bludgeoning barbarity of their youth. The production here is astounding, pure and cold and raw and as perfectly plotted as most of their other work. Truly, this is one of their 'fun' albums, but it also maintains a surprisingly serious side, ala the message found through some of the lyrics. It's probably cool to hate this record by now, but that's the great thing about Fenriz and Nocturno Culto. They are the antithesis of cool, and that is why are so endeared to their efforts.

Highlights: Graveyard Slut, Whiskey Funeral, De Underjordiske (Ælia Capitolina), Shut Up

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (and you call yourself a man)

http://www.myspace.com/officialdarkthrone

Darkthrone - Sardonic Wrath (2004)

Sardonic Wrath is the 11th album from Norway's beloved bastards, an extremely strong showing which bridges the morbid taint of the prior Hate Them with a blast from the past, namely a return to the overall sonic aesthetics of the 'unholy trinity' which brought them into prominence (A Blaze in the Northern Sky, Under a Funeral Moon, and Transilvanian Hunger). It is astonishing to me that a band remains so strong so late in their career...think of how many other black metal artists, or metal artists in general, that you listen to, and how solid they were by the 11th album? Most have fizzled out by that point or gone in some direction to polarize their fan base, 'selling out' or whatever hogwash terminology is being used to sate the stubborn feelings of alienation fans can feel when they are no longer the 'only' fans.

Darkthrone have faced such prosecution, and survived, but Sardonic Wrath is the type of album that probably recalled a lot of the fans that left them on Ravishing Grimness, safely nestled in with their earlier sounds, but not ignorant of the minor progressions they have made with each album starting at Panzerfaust. That said, this safety net is just about the only complaint I can make for this album, because truth be told it is phenomenal, thick as thieves with classic Culto riffing and interesting lyrics that see Darkthrone in their transition towards the more bitter political and social criticism that lit the punk fire under their asses in recent years.

"Order of the Ominous" is a drawn out dark ambient void, which unlike the intro to Hate Them, is a track until itself. Distortion buzzes off in the background over swelling black noise, with no warmth or melody, and it is this aesthetic which breeds throughout the metal tracks. "Information Wants to Be Syndicated" is a cold blast of holocaust, the vocals almost lazily placed at the back end of the measures, floating off into the sick violence of the break at about :30. The breakdown in the track is surefire, slow and heavy, not far off from much of the drone and sludge that was breaking out in popularity at the time. "Sjakk Matt Jesu Krist (Checkmate Jesus Christ)" brings in the raving lunacy of the band's Hellhammer leanings, with a raw vitriol enforced through the harsh lyrical winds and the pumping bass distortion.

"Straightening Sharks in Heaven" is yet another interestingly titled track, with a bright, rolling bridge that seems like something Voivod, until it rings out into the glorious third rhythm, evoking that Bathory-on-a-dobby-horse motif the band have often used in the past. "Alle Gegen Alle (All Against All)" is dark and dank, like a pissed off alcoholic spraypainting his own blood, vomit and urine all over a sewer wall, not expecting to see the next day. It's primal and utterly simplistic, with extremely subtle hooks delivered only through the rhythmic crashing, but the meathook delivery of the bridge before 2:00 is worth listening for alone. "Man Tenker Sitt (My Thoughts Sit)" brings forward a little of the band's death metal influence, but the verses broil in a Bathory-like stew with a hefty diabolical impact.

Fuck hope
My empty stare just might make you
want to think twice

So invokes Nocturno Culto in "Sacrificing to the God of Doubt", one of the more melodic tracks on the album, with a great sheen to the chords that feels like skirting a post-industrial wasteland of nihilistic thought. At the 90 second line, the band lurches into a total Norse crawl, complete with marrow-draining minor chords and plodding bass. "Hate is the Law" is like a Transilvanian Hunger track without the screaming mountainside melodies, just a grinding abyss of hostility, a bowel movement for the Father of Lies, but the chorus riff is staggeringly punk as fuck and one of the best on this whole album. "Rawness Obsolete" returns to the crawl the band started with "Sacrificing to the God of Doubt", with a more fleshed out rhythm, and a powerful, ominous crushing atmosphere, before ceding to an even further doomed segment. It's solid 'Throne, but I will admit to getting a little dulled by the rhythm after a spell, and it's likely the least interesting thing you'll discover on this.

I'll admit, a little of my fire for Sardonic Wrath has died down in the six years since its release, a little rust flaked away from the morbid engines of my obsession. It's a fantastic album that I would gladly listen to over about 95% of other black metal releases, but not one of the band's very best when glimpsing back through their career. However, I think it's one of their rare efforts where fans of various eras can come together and find something in common, since it seems to sit dead center in the pantheon.

Highlights: Information Wants to Be Syndicated, Sjakk Matt Jesu Krist, Straightening Sharks in Heaven, Hate is the Law

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (I've become what you hate)

http://www.myspace.com/officialdarkthrone

Darkthrone - Hate Them (2003)

After the lukewarm reception for their previous album, something must have crawled up this duo's collective sphincter and died, leaving some residual cancer of the spirit, because Hate Them is the most fucked up and evil record the band had released since in about a decade, with a harsh, no frills production. This is the Darkthrone of the battlefield, black and white, unholy warfare captured on a still and dripping with vile humours and callous intentions, hostile enough the peel the fresh paint job off your ride and transform your life from sunshine to entropic despair. The lyrics here are seriously excellent, you can just feel the frustration that must have gone into writing them, and it translates perfectly into the rugged, hostility of the compositions.

"Rust" opens with a minimal, ambient noise segment composed by Lrz, pulsing like a blackened quasar before the guitar chords ring out and bend northward, slowing stammering into position like a phalanx of undead, decaying soldiers in WWII uniforms. The band slowly maintains this march, hammering along with a steady drum that constantly hovers over the edge of some forward momentum, which finally arrives at 3:00 minutes into the song, but only at a marginal uptempo from the previous section. "Det Svartner Nå (It Darkens Now)" is blood curdling, disgusting black with the band's usual Hellhammer meets punk rock influence, a sequence of chords that a two year old chimpanzee could pick up and play, and yet it lacks no wealth of diabolism, a tangibly gut wrenching atmosphere. If neanderthals figured out how to play black metal many thousands of years ago, it might have sounded like this.

"Fucked Up and Ready to Die" picks up the pace considerably, the fastest track on this early half of the record, with a huge death metal tone to the grinding axe rhythm and drums that charge every so slightly beneath its surface, a greatly grooving bridge, and then a segment that lapses into a monolithic, tortured doom, phenomenal with Nocturno's vocals like a monk who has just renounced his vows to finally discover Satan. "Ytterst I Livet (On the Edge of Life)" is a plodding, suicidal anthem which reeks of droning noise rock ala the Melvins, swerving into a dense barrage of twisted, depressive chords and rumbling blastwork. "Divided We Stand" is one of the best tracks here, ranging from the spikes and leather death of its opening riffs to a swelling, dank fueled punk and pumping breakdown with enough girth to fill any glory hole.

"Striving for a Piece of Lucifer" is a cool, bruising tune packed with atmosphere, and a coy lyrical awareness that reveals the roots of Darkthrone's shift into the self-effacing scene-busting entity that they will become on albums like F.O.A.D. and the masterful Dark Thrones and Black Flags. 'Let's see who stands when the smoke clears', indeed! "In Honour of Thy Name" is notable for having some of my favorite lyrics in the band's entire history, taking the pseudo-condemnation of the previous track up a notch and telling you what's what. Poseurs leave the fucking hall, please. As for the riffs, they're bouncy and punkish until the expectant breakdown into total Hellhammer rocking, right beneath some of the best lines in the song!

Black Metal is the devil's fuel
Ram painted abattoirs
Hail the new born king
and join the fuckin dead

Half-horrified that the band might dip below their career low of Plaguewielder, I was extremely relieved by just how refreshing this album was. As they would and will do so many times through their history, it represents yet another small re-invention of their sound, drawing on the roots of their early 90s albums like A Blaze in the Northern Sky and Under a Funeral Moon but placing the murk and miasma into a new context, this one even more grim than the last. Hate Them is just another in a long line of mandatory Darkthrone recordings that I would highly advise you to purchase, unless of course you suck. Not at life, though, because these albums were written specifically for those of us who do suck at life.

Highlights: turn them off. It's better to cry in the dark.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.5/10] (no time for scars now)

http://www.myspace.com/officialdarkthrone

Darkthrone - Plaguewielder (2001)

It's pretty much par for the course for 'elitist' black metal scrubs to harp on anything Darkthrone have accomplished beyond their first 4-5 albums, but of their entire body of work, Plaguewielder is the only album that might actually deserve a little flogging. No, not for the color cover art. Seriously, there were individuals who hacked this record to pieces because it had a color cover...even though the band had already used color covers...including their fucking debut album... So the band logo is also in color. Who cares? When did metal heads start getting their panties in a bunch over senseless details, and why don't they just leave the nerd rage to the nerds? This is the world we live in, folks, these are the people breeding among you.

But you've got about as much patience for my sociology lessons as I do in writing them. I had mentioned that this album may actually deserve a little ribbing, because truth be told, it is probably the worst Darkthrone album ever recorded. Gasp. Yes, this is perhaps the lowest point that the band has reached as of 2010, if you discount some of their rather useless EPs or singles. It's not that Plaguewielder is in any way terrible, or even bad. It's actually a very good record, with a few dull moments that hold it back from the greatness, and unlike so much of their work, I have not grown fonder of it through time, quite the opposite. I'd say, of the six tracks (only six, like the last album), there are four great ones, and two that have their high points and then a little lagging behind. As far as the production, it's not a lot different than Ravishing Grimness, only a bit more raw, as if the band were bridging back from its predecessor to their twilight years. Fenriz and Nocturno fill out their same roles as that album, with a few guest vocals on the track "Command", including Apollyon from Aura Noir, Immortal, etc.

Part of the problem with Plaguewielder is that it doesn't put its best foot forward. "Weakling Avenger" might open with an entertaining sample of the band members groaning and creaking as they clear their throats, a strange intro before a fairly majestic carousel-sounding black metal rhythm enters the fray, soon shifting into faster territory with a pretty average Norse rhythm one would expect from many of the band's peers. This goes on for nearly 8 minutes, and until about half way through at 4:00 where the band does a breakdown, I can feel a tinge of ennui coming on when I listen to this. It's not terrible, and the sound is nice and savage, it's simply not one of the better sequences of notes strung together here. "Raining Murder" feels as if it might suffer the same fate until the turbulent bridge rhythm, over which a rumbling storm erupts, and the song begins to emit an air of psychotic mayhem true to the implications of its title, and the breakdown here is a lot better than in the first track. "Sin Origin" feels a lot more like the old Darkthrone of A Blaze in the Northern Sky, albeit in the brighter, bloodied hacking tones of Ravishing Grimness. The melody at the minute mark is excellent, with a firm, circular rocking rhythm that descends into a more disjointed take on their Hellhammer-ing doom.

Absurd hopeless rivalry
Ubertragic trinity
the damned one, swan and sunray
Sick engine; the piston hammers away...

"Command" is another of the album's longer tracks, at 8 minutes, but it carries this well, with some churning grooves that collapse into a rainbow of desolate chords, Culto's vocals springing out like a shadowcat stalking wounded prey. The rapid transition feels immediate and reminiscent of something the band would have written for Transilvanian Hunger, and the backing vocal eruption is pretty fucking sweet. "I, Voidhanger" reminded me a little of Voivod, if only for the stream of spacey, grooving chords and rolling footwork, which eventually builds into a solid, memorable thrashing rhythm before the blasted outbreak of its climax. "Wreak" is over nine minutes of utter havoc, but like the opening track "Weakling Avenger", it doesn't fully carry its weight. Some of the riffs are simply repeated a few times too often, and while there are numerous dynamic shifts, all of which produce positive short-term results, I feel as if it could have been two separate tracks or at least trimmed down to a more digestable form. That being said, the riffs themselves are decent, and I've definitely heard a lot more numbing waste of space in a black metal song

As you can tell, this album is not quite the disaster it is often painted as. For a career low, it's still pretty entertaining, and in fact, I can think of numerous black metal bands who have yet to even release something of its quality. The lyrics are still interesting, Fenriz and Nocturno are in fine form, but there is just something missing...some almost intangible, voracious spirit that temporarily removed itself from the studio or songwriting to smoke a cigarette this time out. Anyone can have an off day, or an off record, and it's a testament to the mighty Darkthrone that even their off days are pretty fabulous.

Highlights: Raining Murder, Sin Origin, Command

Verdict: Win [8/10] (I am of pride and contempt)

http://www.myspace.com/officialdarkthrone