Darkthrone - A Blaze in the Northern Sky
Review: Intensely curious as to the nature of evil young Darkthrone promulgated their vision through music which aims to sound random, sloppy, haphazard, simplistic and inscrutable. In that spirit we get this arrangement of songs which celebrate the heaviness of simple nihilism through older styles of music parodied into a sick chorus of angry voices.
The fusion of decayed visions of 1950s crooner rock with three chord punk gives way to Hellhammer-esque trudging, repetitive, but distinctive tune which like thrash songs iterate a single riff through different sub-rhythms to make an impression of essence. Ghoulish voices chant over the plod of drums and the strumming churn of guitar, keeping a rhythm to break for chorus or other paradigm shift, necessitating an artificial pause before the chord change to keep the illusion of demons who never practice their instruments.
Like legs under skirts drums move seductively, using the diffused bass hits to offset the alternate marching of snare and high-hat. Fills are precise and complexity intensity interesting but calculated to look offhand. Demonic mysteries? Atonal, chromatic and deliberately simple riffs; the aesthetic dictates nihilistic sterility of music, and from that Darkthrone have wrought mystical violence in rhythm and context equalization for tone.