I suppose you could consider today Fenriz Day here at The Atonal Lobe, and I'm starting off the entries of the day with an instrumental gem hidden within Darkthrone's discography. These are the instrumental demo sessions for the death metal album that would eventually become Goatlord, and they come with a song called "A Blaze In the Northern Sky" and a primitive but awesome and "grim" drum solo by Fenriz. This album packs an incredibly heavy metal wallop, with each track stacking riff upon riff upon riff of evil and angular death metal fury. Some of the riffs are sludgy and crushing, some of them are fast and breakneck, and some of them are simply eerie, but all are well-thought-out and are underpinned by Fenriz's mad and propulsive drumming. There isn't much of a specific structure or cohesion to any of these tracks, per se, but that's not really needed: The riffs by themselves are great and memorable. Few albums make me feel as positively doomed and crushed as this one. The production is, as you might expect for a demo, somewhat fuzzy and lo-fi, but I think that adds to its charm. All of the instruments are still audible and coherent without being ear-piercing.
Favorite track: "A Blaze In the Northern Sky"
Least favorite track: "Toward the Thorn Fields"
Get it here
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