Members of Mayhem and Darkthrone in an early '90s photo
DARKTHRONE'S release of A Blaze in the Northern Sky in 1992 was an earth-shattering event in the history of black metal. The Norwegian scene hadn't put out many full-length studio albums yet, and Darkthrone's first album was basically death metal, not black metal. Darkthrone now consisted of three members since Dag Nilsen had left: Zephyrous, Nocturno Culto, and Fenriz. However, they had a renewed focus now that they were committed to black metal.
The follow-up to Blaze is the 1993 classic Under a Funeral Moon. On this album, Darkthrone (by their own admission) moved even further away from their death metal roots. They acknowledged that they had still used a death metal template for some of their songs on Blaze, but had now jettisoned that foundation. Even Fenriz himself admitted that Blaze was "a lot of death metal with some black metal parts." 1993's Under a Funeral Moon, however, was "pure black metal."
Here's "Unholy Black Metal," from Under a Funeral Moon
With Under a Funeral Moon (even more than Blaze), the classic second wave black metal template began to solidify. The primitive, blasting drums; the raw, screeched vocals; the tremolo picking riffs....all of it was present in a way that felt new and fresh. It has even been called the "blackest black metal" album that Darkthrone has ever made.
Soon after its release, Darkthrone entered the studio to record its follow-up. At the time, however, things had changed in the Norwegian scene. In 1991 and 1992, things in the Norwegian black metal scene had been relatively organic and tightly knit. There were few actual black metal bands and the focus was on the music. But by 1993, the church burnings and murders associated with the Inner Circle had begun to distract people from the music. It also attracted media attention and resulted in the scene being flooded with black metal posers. This state of affairs greatly influenced Darkthrone's mindset as they recorded their next album.
"Slottet I Det Fjerne" is one of their most famous tracks from Transilvanian Hunger
Now a duo (Zephyrous left the band after a car accident), Darkthrone released album number four in early 1994. This album--Transilvanian Hunger--was another masterpiece that changed the face of black metal. Even more raw, with an aura of misanthropic darkness (which resulted from a dark, ultra lo-fi production), Hunger had blazingly fast songs that influenced a generation of black metallers. Within the span of three years, Darkthrone had revolutionized black metal.
One source of controversy was the band's messaging on the album itself. On the back cover of the album, the band labeled their music as "Norwegian Aryan Black Metal," and in the liner notes they noted that anyone who criticized their music was behaving in a "Jewish" fashion. Years later, Fenriz himself noted that this kind of language was unacceptable and even called it "disgusting."
Off of Panzerfaust, this is "Hans siste vinter"
While Darkthrone's first three black metal albums (Blaze, Funeral, Hunger) are sometimes called their 'unholy trinity' because of how influential and revolutionary they were, I like to lump in their 1995 release, Panzerfaust, as well. The structure laid down on Hunger and Funeral were present, to some degree, but the production values were notably different. The vocals had a more vile, trebly feel to them than in previous albums, giving the entire album an angry rawness that was less present on the earlier releases. All told, Panzerfaust is just as essential as Under a Funeral Moon or Transilvanian Hunger.
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