Darkthrone - In The Shadow of the Horns

 Riff mark: 4:06

Okay…the self-induced production sucks, for starters. There, 80% of the potential audience has fled to the greener pastures of Tampa. If you stuck around and bundled up in your bullet belts, the spoils of braving such winters is one of the more adventurous, and ultimately better black metal albums to come from that Norwegian genesis. Blaze is the polar opposite of Soulside Journey, the group shivering its death metal origins and a bassist in the process, intent on howling under the same freezing moon of native corpsepainters Mayhem. More chances taken here than on De Mysteriis, especially in 10+ minute saga Kathaarian Life Code, its sprawling middle a belly of doom before a final magnificent eruption of warpspeed black thrash (world without end). That’s just the opener! Five additional songs averaging 6 minutes apiece, standout of choice being In The Shadow Of The Horns, a so-Celtic-Frost-it’s-not-funny grinder in which Nocturno Culto actually screams his own name before singing. Arguably some of the mosh-iest BM riffs of its time, here. Eventually the remainder of Blaze semi-degenerates into blurs of thrash beats and quarter-note tremolo picking, but the album’s first 20 minutes are rather remarkable. A deliberately raw recording, simple in riff but broad in scope and idea, A Blaze In The Northern Sky remains the grittiest Renaissance figure to represent an awakening of mangled, evil thought.