Darkthrone ‎"Arctic Thunder" CD

Darkthrone is many things. They're aggressive. Primal. DIY. They're quintessentially black metal, and have been since their second album. But for everything that Darkthrone is, one thing they definitely aren't is predictable. They transitioned sharply from underground death metal to "trve kvlt" black metal in the span of one release, and switched just as sharply to crust punk inflected speed metal in the early 2000s. And when "Tundra Leech", the lead single from Arctic Thunder, was released, it came as yet another shock.
It's immediately apparent from the start of the song - track one on the record - that this album represents a shift back to black metal. Yet it's not the "black metal" that one may come to expect. Plodding blackened-doom riffs thunder along where blast beats and tremolo picked guitars may once have reigned, and thrash-inspired chord progressions keep the album from sounding like a Panzerfaust rehash. It's almost like an early '90s Burzum release, strained through an '80s thrash filter and given the primitive Darkthrone treatment. Most of the songs are slow. This might be a turn-off for many listeners, but it matches the lyrical content well and none of the songs drag on. The longest song doesn't even crack six minutes, but each still has the same claustrophobic, cold atmosphere as a ten-minute epic like "Kathaarian Life Code". Slow tempos also put the spotlight on Nocturno Culto's vocals, where previous albums drowned him out in trebly guitars and lightning-speed drums. His spotlight is well-deserved - it may well be his best vocal performance since Transilvanian Hunger. Eschewing the traditional black metal shriek in favor of a mid-range snarl, Culto evokes the spirit of early death metal in a manner rather befitting of the songs. The vocal style might be out of fashion nowadays - a clear pitch can be discerned from many of his screams - but it feels new and refreshing in the context of music that is often singularly dominated by one technique. His vocals match the lyrics, too. Fenriz, who penned the words to five of the eight songs on the record, seems hell-bent on keeping the lyrics as cold and grim as the Northern wasteland that his music evokes. It's clear here, as on most other Darkthrone releases, that English isn't his first language. But even when Culto howls about "scepters" instead of "specters", the ghostly image that Fenriz surely intended is still easily discerned. Many of the other songs discuss such "kvlt" topics as misanthropy and evil. "The Wyoming Distance" expresses this quite directly. Fenriz writes that he regrets that others pursue him when he'd wish to be alone, and somehow manages to elucidate (however vaguely) what in the hell a "Wyoming distance" might be.
Many metal bands have tried and failed to return late in their careers to the styles where they cut their teeth. But Darkthrone looks to black metal of old with enough reverence to do it right. The result is one of the band's best albums in recent history, and likely one of their best altogether.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...