DarkThrone Displays An Ancient Sound with Eternal Extravagance

Everyone’s favorite Norwegian politician/postal service employee, Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, and his ever-silent, ever-watchful supplier of friendship and dark money, Ted “Nocturno Culto” Skjellum, have managed to find time out of their busy schedules of campaigning, letter sorting and fundraising to grace our ears with another album from their little-known side project, DarkThrone. Considering the extremely public profiles of both men involved, this release is sure to spur heaps of comparative coverage from the music media.

How does this effort stack up to their previous work, and which of their numerous influences do they pay homage to this time? These are all entirely relevant questions that many may be able to infer the answers to themselves, which is precisely why I’m going to pontificate on another album that came out 21 years ago.

In all seriousness, if you’re a fan of DarkThrone’s music, you probably think you know what to expect by now: Blackened, crusty heavy metal. And to a sizable extent with Eternal Hails, that’s what you receive. The anticipated Hellhammer/Celtic Frost and Candlemass touches make their expected appearances and Nocturno Culto’s corpsepaint caveman vocals, along with the masterfully restrained production, all give this celebration of real Metal solid structural “bones,” from His Master’s Voice to Lost Arcane City of Uppakra.

What lurks in the subterranean, however, to my ears, is a clever “return” to the raw, sparsely electronically-accented, sinister sound that DarkThrone’s peers Satyricon explored in 1999’s Rebel Extravaganza.

At first listen, it may seem like Eternal Hails and Rebel Extravaganza have very little in common: production in Rebel is extremely clean, whereas the opposite is true for Eternal. On the former, Satyricon ratcheted up the intensity from their previous work, whereas DarkThrone undoubtedly have more outright “aggressive” albums than Eternal.

However, upon closer inspection, both albums have an unwavering dedication to the art of simple, buzzsaw “backbone” riffs progressing to grinding, borderline-prog rock climaxes. I think listening to “Prime Evil Renaissance” (which, wouldn’t ya know it, features Fenriz on drums), followed by “Wake of the Awakened” would exemplify this the best to anyone who cares to follow me: the albums are superficially opposite, but they are, in a word, ideological companion pieces. The riff is the law, all pomp and circumstance is eschewed to make way for a bare bones assault on the listener… except when it isn’t.

The sparse, subtle inclusion of Moog synthesizer interludes on closing track Lost Arcane City of Uppakra were a definite curve ball in the most positive sense, giving a tasteful bit of cold atmosphere to the otherwise stripped-down effort in the same manner as the electronic samples did throughout Rebel Extravaganza and proof enough that Fenriz and Nocturno Culto still have a few tricks up their sleeve to keep the cynics on their toes. I’d be totally down to hear these two play Blackened prog rock recorded in a cave at this point.

Eternal Hails is available here through Peaceville records and I definitely recommend you pick it up.