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DARKTHRONE
Pre-Historic Metal

Peaceville (2026)
Rating: 8.5/10

Darkthrone, unholy Darkthrone… the boys are back in town with more vintage vigour and leathery nostalgia than you can shake an inverted crucifix at. With their silliest album cover since 2022 opus Astral Fortress, the Norwegian tag team of Ted “Nocturno Culto” Skejellum and Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell embark on their 22nd expedition into icy blackness, whereby age-old riffs, which Fenriz probably conjured while hiking, crunch like footfalls in pristine blankets of snow and the vocals grunt like an oncoming rumbling blizzard sweeping across the tundra.

Always somehow tongue-in-cheek, and yet Darkthrone trawls the depths of Hellhammer and Celtic Frost’s ruthless underworld with all seriousness; Fenriz, hidden behind bushy beard and raging percussive kit, thumping like a caveman and roaring mournfully with primitive aplomb as if he were the last man on the planet in dire need of a mate. And then there’s Nocturno Culto, he of lank hair and axe to grind, barking with demonic menace behind riffs carved from archaic slabs of black, dripping marble.

This is very much the Darkthrone we’ve become accustomed to, and a band still snarling angrily in the face of those “fans” still expecting a return to the early 90s black metal style. The corpse paint has long since been washed down the drain, and the Darkthrone of today is a beast that very much laps at the shores of rough ‘n’ ready and obscure 80s metal, the sort of genuinely evil riff-o-rama that can be both lengthy and a tad repetitive just so as to force home how good the riff is. However, Darkthrone is an entity that’s just so metal that the audience can’t but choke on the fumes of decaying forest pine mulch and creaking leather jackets.

It was the title track which crawled from the cracks first, introducing itself by heaving its stinking raw hide out of the pit like a freshly thawed mammoth, the gritty riff rolling with what is now the signature doomy coating of the band. Darkthrone maintains an atmosphere though that’s straight from the crypts of vintage Sodom, Celtic Frost etc., so much so that I donned my studded leather wristband which I last wore in 1988, just to listen to it.

The grimness portrayed is of Darkthrone’s own doing, because even with the obvious influences the twosome crafts something so organic and deep, a gnawing churning cacophony from the aching of hearts and souls succumbing to slow permafrost. The cries of “Behold the mordant peril” ring out from Fenriz’s throat and across the black vacuum as a twisted Hellhammer riff spirals beyond the walls of ash. Like ancient Bulldozer, Venom and Sodom, the track gallops with such a wicked streak and is littered with those familiar wails of despair. At one moment Fenriz is an inconsolable soul in torment, the next a commanding officer crying orders to the troops of the undead.

It’s no surprise that the album sounds like this, but there are a few little curveballs thrown in too, just to add daring melody to the cauldron. So it’s a surprise then that my favourite tracks are the less predictable compositions, like the cosmic instrumental ‘So I Marched To The Sunken Empire’, which would’ve been even better extended as an atmospheric and majestic odyssey. However, the album is littered with interesting segments ranging from clear vocal tirades to serrated thrash riffs, as well as creaking doom metal shifts and traditional metal grooves plucked straight from the Manilla Road textbook of how to make your metal sound and smell musty.

Lyrically, it’s the usual midnight ramblings of Fenriz; always intriguing, mystical, mythical and semi-surreal as the mighty ‘They Found One Of My Graves’ scurries in with a serrated thrashy riff before transforming into something Mercyful Fate would have been proud of. To say this album is instantly accessible is an understatement because even with its varying melodies and nostalgic whiff, Pre-Historic Metal sounds fresh. Sure, the Celtic Frost vibes literally drop from the menace of ‘Siberian Thaw’, and there are loose elements of crusty punk too, but somehow the black riffs remain tight, gripping the throats of the audience like a grinning boa constrictor.

The riff on ‘Deeply Rooted’ is crushingly monolithic as the drapes of blackened doom smother the ears to the mocking slurs of “Some day, You’ll know what it means, It uses all its force to be Unseen. Deeply rooted”. ‘The Dry Wells Of Hell’ features a strong repetitive riff which at times reminds me of Black Sabbath circa Sabotage (1975).

My only quibble of the album is that some of the songs are a dash too long which, if trimmed, could have resulted in a few more tracks being available. I’ve no complaints though about the traditional doom lethargy of ‘Eon 4’ or the chugging menace of ‘Eat Eat Eat Your Pride’ with it’s almost poetic lyrics; “Declaration of penance, Stirring the geddon, The scenic route to cruelty, Through my milestone graveyard. Songs from the shadow of yourself, Brandishing unhinged rage, Tripping the dark fantastic – with a heavy heart”.

The continued longevity of Darkthrone maybe partly down to the enduring appeal of their nostalgic traipsing, but there’s obviously something less transparent going on – a deep hidden chemistry and knowing between two musicians who prolifically churn out gnawing heavy metal for the masses, underground and overground. The hardened black metal elitists and hardened sceptics will always criticize Darkthrone’s musical journey, but it is a derogatory existence that matters not. Darkthrone exists as an ancient immovable force, a swirling pitch black vortex that will shift on its axis yet remain rooted to its aim. And that aim? To stay metal and to keep the sacred history of the genre alive in a world where such is diluted, sanitised and over-produced. Hail Darkthrone.

Neil Arnold

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