When you buy this record (and dammit YOU WILL) and you press play on your record player, prepare to get a sudden (metaphorical) slap in the face.

The production is horrible and it will fall on you like a ton of bricks as soon as you turn it on. It sounds like this was recorded in a cave with a Fisher Price tape deck. If you don't turn it off within the first 5 seconds, the music will ooze into your veins like heroin. Basically you get used to the lousy production very quickly (and if you don't just give this to a real black metal fan and "rock out" to the most recent Dummy Burger album).

I ask myself if this album would be as much of a masterpiece if it was well recorded, and I don't think it would. Good production is not the point and it would simply upstage the music.

This is bare bones black metal. It relies on washed out production and incredible melodies to create real atmosphere, instead of resorting to keyboards and echo which can sometimes just be false atmosphere.

Possibly Darkthrone's best, but get them all and decide for yourself.

(10/10)

© 2000 raagoonshinnaah