Dark Medieval Times

I can still recall the day I bought SATYRICON's first release 12 years ago. This is not because, in itself, that day was any more special than other ones, but because this album unlocked the gates to a world that had been unknown to me until then. A world of Vikings, castles and vast forests. I thus entered the realms of "DARK MEDIEVAL TIMES".

We adults lack imagination when compared to children, and we need something to stimulate and trigger the process where all things rational are left behind and only the mysterious remains. This is what "DARK MEDIEVAL TIMES" does to me. It makes me delve into realms that no eye can see, and which exist only in the dark depths of my mind. When I first heard it, it made me dream of the times when Vikings still ravaged Europe and of centuries when the inner walls of castles were illuminated by torches. Today, it still has that effect on me, but there's another one as well. It makes me dream of the days when Satyricon composed songs of high-quality Black Metal! In both cases, we are talking about times that are gone for all eternity and will never return! In any case, I feel it is my duty to praise all the instruments used on this album. The guitars maneuvre exclusively within what were back then the newly-set borders of Black Metal, both soundwise and riffwise. The drums are not an imitation of Death Metal blast-beats, nor are they the result of artificial studio work which, as it happens today, gives drums a totally anti-BM sound that would have been more suited to pop music! Instead, they have a very special feel to them, a sound that typified all Black Metal albums in the first half of the 1990's. They are both complex and easy to follow, and beneath the buzzing sound of the guitars, appear to infuse the songs with a life of their own. The vocals on "DARK MEDIEVAL TIMES" are not exactly at the forefront, but simply loom in from the background like a spectral shade through a veil of mist. Which brings me to the atmosphere of this album. The only words that come to my mind are "misty" and "icy". The keyboards that are used on a regular basis throughout the songs accentuate this dense atmosphere further. What we are dealing with is Black Metal music with elements that are, if I may say so, darkly medieval. Unique in the most positive meaning of the word!

Too many bands have attempted, over the years, to create an album that is truly Black Metal-sounding yet has an atmosphere rooted in the middle-ages. As far as I can tell, they all ended up playing a mixture of folk and BM and sounded funny rather than dark or medieval. SATYRICON, however, were far more skilled and gave the medieval period a Black Metal expression. We all know it as "DARK MEDIEVAL TIMES".