Year Of Metal #061: Darkthrone - A Blaze In The Northern Sky
It’s another trip to Norway for another instalment of proper black metal. Like my previous experience with Emperor, I went in prepared for a genuine struggle, and instead found an album of harsh and challenging music, but an LP that I could get my head around and often really enjoy. And as an added bonus, none of Darkthrone ever murdered anyone or burned a church down, so good on them for that.
The record starts exactly as you’d imagine it might - in extremely ominous fashion, with spacious swirling effects, some priestly chanting, and one of the Darkthrone lads making disgusting pig noises in the background. It’s some of the best tension-raising stuff I’ve heard in metal - you know that, when they kick into gear, it’s going to get extremely loud, so this stage setting ambience does a great job of putting you on edge. When it kicks into gear, it does so all at once, with blast beats overwhelming the vicious, gnarled guitars and vocalist Nocturno Culto howling his throat raw over the top of it all.
What I like about this stuff is that they’re not a million miles away from a band like The Stooges in their sound. Take away the death growls and de-fang the guitars just a touch and you’re in palatable punk rock territory. Hardcore is an influence on black metal in its aggression and dynamics, but I think Darkthrone lean into that kind of stuff more than Emperor did on In The Nightside Eclipse. While their compatriots embraced an almost fantastical symphonic sound at times, Darkthrone’s black metal is all out attack. There’s nothing hidden in the depths of the mix; it’s all right there, pulverising the listener.
That could be a chore if these dudes didn’t know how to write a song, but they really do. On opener “Kathaarian Life Code” they bring light and shade of a sort, highlighting in turn the lower end stomp and migraine-inducing uber-distorted guitars. “In The Shadow Of The Horns” packs a proper wallop of a riff and brief respite in which they chug away like a perfectly friendly punk rock band before the howls of fury start up again.
Not unlike so many of the thrash albums I’ve listened to, you’d be hard pressed to say it isn’t repetitive stuff. Darkthrone have an ideology of sorts, and they’ll be damned if they’re going to stray too far from it. But I’m far more inclined to give these lot a pass. Firstly I just find this sound an awful lot more interesting. It’s music that sounds like it might be easy to make, but I imagine the reverse is actually true - getting this stuff on record in an audible fashion when everything is so blown up and colossal must be quite the challenge. I also enjoy the legitimate feel of the whole thing. The macho trappings of thrash will often find the singers bloviating about war and carnage and all that stuff; instead of that, we’ve got a 21 year old Norwegian weirdo shrieking his lungs out about God knows what. It’s a different class of vibes.
42 minutes of this gear is certainly plenty for now, but I thought this was pretty terrific stuff. It’s snarling and endurance testing to a point, but it’s really good fun, too, and those hyperdriven guitars are so gritty and vile that I can’t help loving them. All the joys of evil without committing any actual acts of evil - not a bad day’s work.
