Darkthrone – It Beckons Us All
Reviewed By: Dennis van’t Hoofd
Review Score: 8
Who would have thought back in the mid-nineties that Norway’s Darkthrone would still be releasing albums thirty something years later? Fact is, It Beckons Us All is their twenty-first studio album since their debut album, Soulside Journey.
Darkthrone started out in 1987 as a four-piece but since their fourth album, Transilvanian Hunger in 1994, guitarist/vocalist Nocturno Culto and drummer/vocalist Fenriz have kept the flame alive as a two-piece and have released albums on a regular basis ever since. Their debut album Soulside Journey was the last album with a properly polished death metal production by Tomas Skogsberg (At The Gates, Dismember, Entombed), after which they went for a Lo-Fi approach on A Blaze In the Northern Sky (1992), Panzerfaust (1995), Goatlord (1996) and onwards. Together with the mystical black and white artwork, pictures and corpsepaint on these early releases and the (pre-internet) lack of information surrounding the band, Darkthrone built up their cult following. Over the years Darkthrone have moved away from a pure black metal sound, incorporating influences of punk, heavy metal, doom and thrash metal but always with a nod to their main influences Celtic Frost.
On It Beckons Us All, Darkthrone still sound raw, primitive and unpolished as ever. The seven new tracks recorded have a blackened heavy metal sound with simple yet effective riffing. Vocal duties are shared by Hank and Ted (I mean, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto). Fenriz using his frantic and crazy clean vocals and Nocturno sounding more like a moody Tom G. Warrior. The album opens with the spacy intro from ‘Howling Primitive Colonies’ and starts with a mesmerizing midpaced heavy metal riff and grim vocals of Nocturno Culto. The second track ‘Eon 3’ is a continuation of ‘Eon 2’ from their 2022 album Astral Fortress and the link goes back all the way to the track ‘Eon’ of their 1989 demo Thulcandra.
By now we should all be used by Fenriz’ frantic singing techniques like for example of ‘Valkyrie’ from 2013’s The Underground Resistance, or back in the day when he was singing for Isengard, or more recently with his venture in Coffin Storm where he laid down vocals for the project with Aura Noir’s Apollyon and Infernö’s Bestial Tormentor. Another fine example of his adventurous singing can be heard at the end of the black thrasher in the chorus of ‘Black Dawn Affiliation’.
After the instrumental intermezzo ‘In That Moment I Knew The Answer’ the album continues with the doomladen track ‘The Bird People Of Nordland’ which contains influences from Candlesmass. ‘The Heavy Hand’ is, on the other hand, an ode to Celtic Frost, but it also has the same vibe as ‘Quintessence’ from the 1995 Panzerfaust album. The album is concluded by the ten-minute opus ‘The Lone Pines Of The Lost Planet’ which starts with a clean guitar intro that reminds of Iced Earth’s ballad ‘I Died For You’ followed by a doomy riff, speeding up a bit with a tasty Fenriz chorus at the end of the song.
It Beckons Us All sounds like a logical follow up to the course that Darkthrone have been following on their last two albums Astral Fortress and Eternal Hails, not caring about trends but bringing us the primitive metal that beckons us all.
It Beckons Us All is out now via Peaceville Records.