DARKTHRONE
Astral Fortress (Peaceville)
There are extreme metal bands who have been more epochal and game-changing than Norway’s Darkthrone (although not many), and many of those bands forever tried (or still do) to push their sound to its practical limit. Darkthrone, by their own testimony, don’t really do that. Rather, 31 years after their debut album, the duo are as a black hole into which the entire panoply of heavy metal is absorbed, before re-emerging as the darkest matter. Still pretty impressive if you can carry it off.
Astral Fortress comprises seven songs, including a sub-two-minute instrumental and a 10-minute swashbuckler commendably titled The Sea Beneath The Seas Of The Sea, and its raw rumble largely sits apart from both Darkthrone’s canonical 90s black metal sound and the 1980s-styled doom metal of their two most recent albums. Even so, there’s some natty tremolo guitar sizzle on Impeccable Caverns Of Satan and the deployment of dramatically slow riffs and some subtle synth parts. Some great lyrical excerpts from the pen of drummer Fenriz, too: I especially liked the imagery of flora and fauna in Stalagmite Necklace.
words NOEL GARDNER
Want more music?
The latest reviews, interviews, features and more, from Wales and beyond.