Now I am not the average Darkthrone nut, in fact I only like three of their albums, this being one "Soulside Journey", and "Transylvanian Hunger" being the other two, I have often been told that is a strange list, but that is the way it is. What is it that I like about this one in particular? I'll be damned if I know. Many complain about the sound not being as grim and raw, and not to mention lo-fi, as their other black metal albums, and that is true, but the sound on this peice is in my opinion good, as it does have a enchanting dark streak, but in the end obsessing with the production of the album, is merely aesthetic focusing, and that does draw attention from what makes the album good or bad, and denying this album has a dark gloomy atmosphere would make you look foolish in my book. This album is generally a bit slow, not that Darkthrone ever was amongst the bands that play fast, this aids the creation of this particular atmosphere, that really captivates me and also annoys me a bit, as I can't pinpoint it's origin. But on the other hand I can somehow grasp why most Darkthrone fans have a hard time swallowing this album, as it is somewhat removed from the accepted Darkthrone aesthetic, a clean production (by Darkthrone standards), colour cover (albeit not a whole lot of colour), less minimalistic (still by Darkthrone standards) and so on, but where else was there to go for Darkthrone? They had already explored the other path within the narrow content of their style, the minimalistic approch had been perfected as much as Darkthrone could on Transylvanian Hunger, even if Ildjarn took it even further he is not Darkthrone, the really raw and old school (read ripping of from Celtic Frost), they took to it's fullest on Panzerfaust, now they took clean but dark black metal to it's fullest by Darkthrone standards, even if they tried it again later,ith Raveshing Grimness but that one utterly failed to deliver, what Total Death already had delivered...

© 2000 sharund