Old Star
THE NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL LEGENDS MARK THEIR RETURN WITH A SUBLIME NEW SLAB OF RELENTLESS RIFFING IN THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE UNDERGROUND Over the course of 30 years, Norway’s Darkthrone has become a staple of the global black metal genre, forging a legacy as one of the most renowned and influential bands in its illustrious & often infamous history. In their formative years, Darkthrone initially started making their mark with a strong concoction of thrash & then death/doom metal experimentation, before the debut album ‘Soulside Journey’ was unleashed in 1991. Never ones to follow convention or stand still even then, the band soon embraced a much darker, more primitive form of expression with the now iconic second album ‘A Blaze in the Northern Sky’, & the rest became history. Now the longstanding duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto return with their first studio album since 2016’s hugely popular ‘Arctic Thunder’ opus, in the shape of ‘Old Star’. With a mastery and endless dedication to the art of the riff, the Norwegian legends cut through 6 new epic tracks, taking in the best of the old school of heavy & extreme metal plus a large dose of doom-laden riffing, & channelling it through the grime of the underground. Engineering and production duties were all carried out by vocalist/guitarist Nocturno Culto, complemented with a perfectly organic mix courtesy of Sanford Parker (Voivod) at Hypercube Studios, & mastered once more by Jack Control at Enormous Door. The stellar cover artistry comes courtesy of Chadwick St John, titled “The Shepherd of the Deep”.
With their true Norwegian black metal days behind them and nothing left to prove, the longrunning duo trumpet their joyful debt to classic heavy metal.
Few bands inhabit a state of being that evokes the pure spirit of heavy metal, going back to its very beginnings. But in the wake of Old Sta...
The progression of extreme metal legends DARKTHRONE from black metal genre pioneer to ambassadors of pure heavy metal expression has been fun to experience. While some of their contemporaries continue to put out competent-yet-watered-down rehashes of works that defined the genre and others self-dest...
James Weaver reviews the brand new album from Darkthrone. Read his review of Old Star here on Distorted Sound!
Norwegian extreme metal titans Darkthrone's latest album Old Star continues in the vein of 2016's Arctic Thunder, but with even more variety.
A review of Old Star by Darkthrone, available May 31st worldwide via Peaceville Records.
An official album review of Darkthrone's Old Star. Certain indigenous cultures believe in using every part of the animal: Darkthrone do that with metal.