I don't mind the direction, but that song is still badly written.

Agreed. It's like you can't dislike the song itself without being called out for whining about them not being black metal anymore. That full song feels overly long and disjointed, just meandering around shittily; reminds me of Metallica's Death Magnetic in that way.

As a retro fetishist and a fan of the bands they've lately been influenced by I personally enjoy the new albums but wish they'd reblacken their sound.

I really hope they don't "re-blacken" their sound (not that I think will ever release a black metal album again). I think those early 2000s albums aptly demonstrated that they've said all they have to say in the black metal field. Like, there's nothing wrong with an album like Hate Them but I just can't find much to get excited about, either.

From the small number of tracks I have sampled from their later material, I've come to the conclusion that darkthrone is a band that takes no innovative steps stylistically in creating their music. It's no secret that they meld old school sounds together to create something, that to me is the equivalent of a modern day remake of a classic movie; Sure, the new movie may have a lot of throwbacks and may please some people, but it will never recapture what made the originals so great. If you know what I mean. Bands like agent steel, venom, and bathory have already been through their heydays. So at this point, I kind of feel like I will never be truly interested in any of darkthrone's later thing.

From the small number of tracks I have sampled from their later material, I've come to the conclusion that darkthrone is a band that takes no innovative steps stylistically in creating their music. It's no secret that they meld old school sounds together to create something, that to me is the equivalent of a modern day remake of a classic movie; Sure, the new movie may have a lot of throwbacks and may please some people, but it will never recapture what made the originals so great. If you know what I mean. Bands like agent steel, venom, and bathory have already been through their heydays. So at this point, I kind of feel like I will never be truly interested in any of darkthrone's later thing.

Ah, a "small number of tracks" led you to this conclusion? Maybe you should actually listen to a whole album before you jump to any large conclusions about the sound? Also like Ilwhyan mentioned that's stupid and doesn't apply to later Darkthrone at all.

That's a really terrible analogy. Remaking an old movie would be equivalent to recording a cover album. Retro is not at all the same thing as a remake.

I don't actually care one iota whether someone's new album is particularly innovative or not. It matters whether it's enjoyable or not.

Seems more like a logical progression to me from their shitty punk crap, to a stripped down awful attempt at playing the sounds of their youth. Does it sound like shit yes and will the album absolutely suck more than likely, but haven't they only released one song to promote this monstrosity? Where did you hear another track?

...

Honestly, what I think metal needs is not a throwback. Instead I think it needs to take a look at itself and not try to be something that it once was. Instead what I wish I could see in metal is more innovation.

I remember seeing a comment to me in the off topic thread once where some moron was all like "you say new osdm is a rehash, I say it's a homage to something we love." Well opinions aside, I think that kind of mentality as bad for music. Why keep recreating the same sound over and over again? The thing that made those sounds great in the first place is that they were innovative! So the idea should be, whether or not you want to become great (which doesn't matter) you should try to be creative. No creativity, besides creating copies of things that already happened = not interesting to me.

All that matters is good songwriting. People who debate this are idiots.

I just don't think it really matters about innovation or staying true to roots or whatever. If you can write good songs that's really about it, for me at least.

Xlxlx, well yeah sure, but I can overlook those other things in some cases - not dealbreakers, ya know.

The production sounds way worse than Circle the Wagons

I don't like it that much but it's good to see them trying something different. The punk albums sucked so hard. My only grip with late Darkthrone is how disjointed sounds compared to the time when they actually wrote songs together and reharsed them.