Those albums aren't punk, fuck off!

They're pretty horrible brah They're just lucky that their garage jams happened to resonate with so many people.

Circle the Wagons had some decent songs, but Dark Thrones... and FOAD were both rather weak albums. The Cult is Alive was the last one that really grabbed me. I even like Plaguewielder, Hate Them, and Sardonic Wrath, and think those albums are much better than the aformentioned ones.

This new one, well I'm sure there will be at least one song that has redeeming qualities to it. I like the cover art anyway.

The era "Total Death --> Sardonic Wrath" is usually not brought up when discussing Darkthrone. It's always either their most influential period (92-95) or their later offerings. The "Total Death --> Sardonic Wrath" era is also very much dominated by Nocturno Culto, whose writing style is very different from Fenriz'.

Hence the quotes around the word! : D

I never saw Darkthrone's "punk" efforts as being anything other than black metal. They are filthy, heavy and evil - the way black metal should be played. For me, Transilvanian Hunger is probably their weakest record, which might be why I gravitate more to their newer stuff - it just resonates with me more.



As a rock n' roll fan, this bugged and still does bug the shit out of me. I used to read Metal Hammer a lot back then, and they used to call SO many bands "Totally Motorhead inspired", when they really just weren't straight black or death metal anymore. It is like people calling a lot of Satyricon's records "black n' roll", or Six Feet Under "death n' roll". There are bands out there that mix black metal or death metal with rock n' roll influences, which is the funny thing - but even those bands I'd hazard to call anything other than just a slightly different take on black or death metal.

I don't see why Ravishing Grimness is grouped in as a forgettable album of their "mid-period." There's a lot of great music on that release. Although I do get the hate for Plaguewielder...ugh.

wow @ the people in this thread who have to bring a purist attitude towards punk, with a band like Darkthrone. There are obvious elements of punk in the new Darkthrone, and also elements of Heavy Metal, especially in Circle The Wagons. I think the reason the odd choice of genre shift became as successful as it did is because DT already had a history of writing cold and isolated songs, and then chose to write music that was more suitable for a bunch of people to gather round and mosh the fuck out to. And they sure did a good job of that. It's a shame Darkthrone doesn't play live, because they're the kind of band who's energy you could clearly see take hold of a small crowd of sweaty metal and punk fans. The D-beats and crash cymbals along with the rough ringing style are very punk and primitive, but the song structures change enough to keep you on you're toes and there are also lots of epic riffs and melodic vocal passages.

CF_Mono just hit the nail on the head. I was shaking my head and laughing reading most of this thread. Fucking strumpets.

I don't even get the hate for that one. It's duller than anything else that they've released, yes, but it's still perfectly fine. It has some good riffs.

And people who don't like neodarkthrone are not real people and should take steps to become ones.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say. It seems that only few people really listened to the 1996-2004 period, because albums like Ravishing Grimness and Hate Them are scarcely talked about. I guess most of the current Darkthrone fanboys began to follow the band from the mid-2000's on.

I don't understand why Panzerfaust is overrated either. It was a hybrid mix between Transilvanian and Frostian songs, with a ridiculous and cowardly statement "we are not a nazi band" - in short, a step backwards. Anyway, here is my top 3:

Transilvanian Hunger
Under a Funeral Moon
Total Death
Ravishing Grimness
Hate Them

I can easily live without the rest, even if Soulside Journey is an interesting death metal album.

Yeah, completely ridiculous. A non-Nazi band saying they are not a Nazi band. And cowardly, too. They don't even dare to lie about it. For shame.

Panzerfaust though, you're right, is anything but overrated. A close contender for their best, more like it. And the one Darkthrone album before the new ones where the vocals are actually interesting and not Nocturno Culto being mediocre.

The simplest thing to do when you absolutely don't want to be labelled as NS is to avoid using words like "Aryan", for example Norsk Arisk Black Metal ("Norwegian Aryan Black Metal"). The controversy about the use of the term "Jew" as a slang word was hilarious too. But hey, we don't want to get boycott, do we?

If Darkthrone had balls, they would have made no comments. When you know who and what you are, you don't need to make stupid statements.

And generally people tend to bash the vocals on Panzerfaust. I don't, even if I find them a bit excessive on "Quintessence".

Maybe they liked controversy. If anything, the original arisk shit was the stupid part, seeing as how they've hardly went on to become some vanguard of nsbm. But knowing Fenriz, it was probably for shits and giggles anyway. Using "jew" or anything racial or the like as an insult hardly means anything either. If it did, I'd be a complete racist misogynist homophobe, and to the best of my knowlege, I'm not.

On the vocals, the one bit in Quintessence where he just makes some silly noises does suck, but other than that they're his best by a long shot.

I suppose my angle is a bit different to the norm, having predominantly gotten into Darkthrone through the later albums, having been introduced to the music by a friend who didn't realise that the early albums weren't similar. For a long time the only two albums I had were A Blaze in the Northern Sky and F.O.A.D, and to tell you the truth I preferred the latter for quite some time. The "may-or-may-not-be-punk" albums are still among my favourites, so I'm looking forward to this one a lot.

I'm working my way through mid-era albums too - Panzerfaust is a firm favourite already, and I think if it was fleshed out more, Total Death would be excellent - there are some ass-kicking first-wave-esque riffs in there begging to be fulfilled. My plan is to listen to the rest by the time this new one comes out now.

"Quintessence" is a quite useless song when you have heard "Noregsgard" from Storm (same riff). I don't know which of the two songs was composed first; according to the booklets, Panzerfaust was recorded in February/April 1994, while Nordavind was recorded in November the same year. Yet "Quintessence" sounds like a recycled version of "Noregsgard", even if it was recorded before.

Well if the new Darkthrone is anything like Manilla Road (as some of you expected) then I'm certainly in for it. They seem to have these three-four record phases, so it might actually happen. I guess I have to buy their "punk" era albums too, haven't heard them yet. A Blaze in the Northern Sky is probably my favourite from them, because it's more complex than their other Black Metal albums. But I like Panzerfaust and UaFM too. Their middle-era records were kind of boring the first time I listened to them, but I'm liking them more and more each listen.

Panzerfaust had The Hordes of Nebulah! This song is balls-to-the-walls pure badassery from beginning to end. Darkthrone's best in my opinion. I like the other ones too, but Nocturno Culto's vocals don't do much for me. I like how barbaric they sound, but I wish he had done it like he did on The Hordes of Nebulah on all the songs.



Fenriz also had lyrics on the Isengard song called Total Death, where he sang "...crush the race of God", and on the song Beholding the Throne of Might, the word "Jew" is censored in the booklet.

I feel the same way, his vocal style on the rest of the album is kind of shit except on The Hordes of Nebulah, which has a more solid black metal vocal style instead of the honestly half-assed attempts at vocals he does on the rest of the album. I still love Panzerfaust, its in my top 5 Darkthrone albums, but the vocals Nocturno does almost detract from the rest of the music (if the rest wasn't already so goddamn great).

Oh yes, it came back to my mind when I listened to the album a few hours ago and heard "who hails a Jew". But hey, it's just Norwegian slang

They certainly wanted to create controversy, yes. Knowing Fenriz? The glory-hound, attention-seeking Fenriz that he is today is hardly the backseat taking, not wanting anything to do with people, giving Nocturno Culto the lead role Fenriz of back in the day. And using the word "jew" or anything racial as an insult, does mean that you think there is something wrong in being a jew or a member of that particular race or that they are somehow inferior to what you represent.

Hank Amarillo hasn't changed that much.


I'm capable of using insults against any race. Including my own. I win. It doesn't mean a thing. Or at least doesn't necessarily have to.

Of course I can't be sure, and I don't really care, if they used it as a proper insult to show some racial superiority of theirs, but seeing how they've not expressed any similar sentiments since (not that I know of at least), it's probably safe to assume that it meant nothing.

Maybe not.

Can't wait for it! LOVE THIS BAND!

How would one know if the usage of a racial insult didn't mean anything? Why would one use a specific term, in this case a denominator of ethnicity, as an insult if it didn't mean anything? Why would it have become ingrained in the collective consciousness as an insult in the first place if it didn't mean anything? If such an ingraining has occured, how would one go about to in the usage of a racial slur discern between a "racist" and a "non-racist" usage?

Questions, questions, questions. Just call people arseholes, is all what I'm saying.

On topic, I'm curious to the development Darkthrone's sound has undertaken for this album. Of the current era, I've greatly enjoyed "The Cult is Alive", but found all following albums to have gotten progressively weaker. A partial reversal to older forms, as a more prominent cue-taking from Celtic Frost would imply, would be welcome. However, I can't say I'm very eager to hear the new album, as I haven't been with any Darkthrone album for years, for that matter.

No doubt most of such "insults" started out as insults. I don't know how you'd discern. If you knew the person well enough you'd know what he/she meant and if you didn't you wouldn't. I admit the safe bet would probably be to think they meant exactly what they said. That's not always true though and it's possible to call someone a jew or nigger or whatever without being a racist, just as well as you can call someone a faggot and not be a homophobe, is my point. It's also possible to just say things you plain don't mean. As a joke, for example. Or to rile some one up.


But I have nothing against assholes either. I wouldn't want to offend these most important of body parts. They do a fine and necessary job.

I sense I'm getting the thread way off topic, so: New Darkthrone! Weeeee!

Whilst I have enjoyed the majority of their later output (dare I say more than their earlier works), I still find it facetious.

Especially when you take a look at Fenriz's BotW palaver.

The triptych of albums consisting of The Cult Is Alive, FOAD and Dark Thrones and Black Flags is really big among my friends who are into punk and they all say the same thing; it's punk played through a filter of BM.

And the first thing you hear on Circle the Wagons is Fenriz shouting "M P D S!"

Let me just add another vote for Goatlord and Ravishing Grimness - I'll take them over the revered early material or the controversial later material anytime.

Goatlord was recorded before A Blaze... It is early material.

Yes, but certainly not revered! And I very much suspect the vocals were not performed in the style the band originally planned.

No offence meant but your post is nonsense. Every word has a particular meaning (according to the context) and since we all use the same language (English here), people are not supposed to guess the meaning of words that you use; dictionaries and common habits define those words. The fact is the use of the word "Jew" has become a racial insult in the common language. For some reason, people with Jewish ancestry don't like to be labelled as "Jews", and this label refers to an "Anti-Semitic" phraseology.

Here's already a review of the album in German:

http://time-for-metal.eu/include.php?pa ... entid=7558

From what I understand (I have just a limited understanding of German):

-One song is 8 minutes long, another one 13 minutes
-Some power and doom metal influences
-Some unusual singing on a few songs


Albums gets a 9/10 rating, but I guess we'll have to wait for more reviews to get a better picture.

Well, this sounds like it's going to be awful.

Sounds great to me. Power and doom metal influences combined with Darkthrone's hard-nosed, stripped down approach can't be anything but awesome.

Darkthrone adding some power and doom to their mix? Me gusta.

Yes. Should have added some shoegaze / post rock influences too, I suppose.

You clearly don't know much about power or doom metal if you think that it's the same kind of disconnect as adding those kinds of influences to the Darkthrone sound.

Without really wanting to jump into this, I've certainly heard the term 'jew' used as an insult against people who are not jewish at all but apparently posses traits commonly associated with jewishness. Similar to how people thesedays may describe things/people/music that they dislike as 'gay', without really meaning that the things being disparaged are actually homosexual. I personally feel that Fenriz was using the term Jew in that manner; which is quite immature and crude, but not ultimately indiciative of anything beyond that.

Anyhow, onto this new album; I will definitely listen to it but my interest in modern Darkthrone has subsided, inverse to the decreasing black metal elements of their music. The Cult is Alive was good, F.OA.D was better, DTABF was okay, Circle the Wagons was pretty dull in many respects. A bit of a pity but its great that they simply make music they love as opposed to what may be expected of them, and always a distinctive feeling to their albums. As one of the first BM bands that really moved me, I always anticipate their music with a certain excitement.

And I am certain it will be better then the latest piece of shit from Burzum.....