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Darkthrone > F.O.A.D. > Reviews > AntaeusOTO
Darkthrone - F.O.A.D.

The St.Anger of Darkthrone. - 29%

AntaeusOTO, September 30th, 2007

Whoa! Where are all these 90 ratings coming from, Nocturno Culto and Fenriz themselves? Have you people heard this album from beginning to end? I have and this is definitely no 90 out of 100. I keep that rating reserved for anything of Darkthrone from 1990 to 1996. Now is this a black metal record? Hell no, but Darkthrone pass themselves off as a black metal band. Of course they should, they´ve only made their names in metal history playing black metal music. They also made some of the finest works in the genre. I´m all for trying to play music from your heroes but at least don´t pass it off as a Darkthrone album. Jeez, I can only imagine if they had thought of trying to play Uriah Heep style music on this. Are they trying to alienate the thousands of loyal and dedicated fans that have stuck with them for the better part of 15 years? From the looks of the direction in the past couple of years it looks like it.

The album starts off with a nice riff on These Shores Are Damned and its a song that easily could have been off The Cult Is Alive. Canadian Metal is an alright track that could´ve done without the clean vocals in the beginning. In a way it takes away the intensity of the track and almost makes you laugh. The Banners Of Old has an big Black Sabbath influence on it but Nocturno´s voice ruins it which is an absolute rarity since he almost never does a bad job on many songs but here he lacks hatred and intensity. Maybe age is getting to them since the fire seems to have dimmed a bit. They are in their mid 30´s and with real lives. They just sound like they´re going through the motions here and seemingly have to look elsewhere for ideas and inspiration to continue. I have to agree with the poster below who said the title track sung by Fenriz is a joke. Even though Fenriz does a nice Lemmy imitation it should have been kept as a b-side, HIdden from the majority of fans. Which leads to another thing, since when does Darkthrone release singles? Didn´t they stand for everything ¨anti-promotion¨? Oh yes, they used to until they started selling out.

I don´t know these guys anymore. I´m ok with going into ¨new directions¨ as long as it´s good as before or close to it. This doesn´t cut the mustard folks. I almost can´t believe the absurd silly lyrics and even sillier song titles (Fuck Off and Die and The Church of Real Metal). I´d love to know what church they´re going to in search for ¨real metal¨ that way I can send a telegram to Varg Vikernes to burn it down. Oh Lord, I can only imagine what Varg himself would think of Darkthrone today as opposed to when he first went into prison back in ´93. Raised On Rock you guys say? Ok, fine do it under a different name but please stop desecrating the good name of your band. For those of you who haven´t heard this I´ll say that Venom sounds harder than this. Yeah, this from the men who brought necro classics as Transylvanian Hunger , Panzerfaust and A Blaze In The Northern Sky. Shame on you Darkthrone for releasing this half assed attempt at ¨metal music¨ and shame on the two guys who actually gave this album 90 or above rating. I´ll keep my copies of Soulside Journey up to Total Death while I´m giving this cd to my friend who can also hear it and give it a negative review in the future. Pathetic.