DARKTHRONE: Circle the Wagons

Produced by Fenriz and Nocturno Culto

Released: April 2010

Darkthrone has always been a law unto themselves. Almost two decades since their mind-numbing excursions into deliberately non-accessible lo-fi black metal buzzsaw noise, they still manage to stay as far from the mainstream as they can. With Circle the Wagons, they move even further away from a field littered with -- in Fenriz' words -- "plastic bands" and plunge forward by going back. Back into the rich and dark heritage of the genre they helped to define.

Circle the Wagons takes the journey Darkthrone began with The Cult is Alive to its logical extent. The punk and old-school metal influences that were always at the very core of their sound have now been given full rein. This is the album that Venom or Hellhammer could have made had they been more competent musicians at the time: raw, no-frills metal with punkish guitars and sneering growls. Darkthrone have always been the masters of making things seem as unadorned as possible, and even the melodies sound primitive. Fenriz is a terrible singer, but his clean vocals in "Those Treasures Will Never Befall You" just ooze all the character of the true underground metal album. Because Darkthrone has always been more about how metal feels than how it sounds. Still, Circle the Wagons also sounds authentic: "I am the Grave of the 80s" is pure northern England NWOBHM. It's hard not to imagine Venom doing this. Similarly, the title track rumbles with a sound as old as extreme metal itself and Lemmy himself would be proud of the punked-out thrashing of "I am the Working Class". Near the end of the album, "Eyes Burst at Dawn" has some great clean vox and killer guitar melodies; a highlight for sure.

Darkthrone being Darkthrone, there's also grimness like "Stylized Corpse" that hearkens slightly to their earlier days and Nocturno Culto's vocals take a disturbing turn in "Black Mountain Totem". I'm not sold on "Bränn Inte Slottet" that seems to exist simply to push it over the 35-minute mark, but that's only a small criticism of another triumphant Darkthrone release.

1. Those Treasures Will Never Befall You
2. Running for Borders
3. I am the Graves of the 80s
4. Stylized Corpse
5. Circle the Wagons
6. Black Mountain Totem
7. I am the Working Class
8. Eyes Burst at Dawn
9. Bränn Inte Slottet

Rating: 87%