Darkthrone - A Blaze in the Northern Sky

If one band can be credited with the development of "modern" black metal, it is Darkthrone. By the time Darkthrone released A Blaze in the Northern Sky, they were already underground legends. Bands like Bathory, Venom, and Mayhem had all been around for several years before Darkthrone, but none of those bands would contribute to the future "cliches" of black metal more than Darkthrone. And the irony in this is the fact that Darkthrone developed these future cliches (i.e., wearing corpsepaint, dressing in all black clothing, posing for pictures during the night, etc.), in order to shock people and spread fear. Eventually the scene went from frightening to laughable, and with the exception of a few bands, became rather watered-down. Fortunately, we have albums like this to remind us of the time when black metal was new, pure, and exciting.

A Blaze in the Northern Sky, first issued in 1992, was revolutionary to say the least. This was probably the first album from any band to use "bad" production purposely in order to create a certain evil aesthetic to compliment their music. Even with the bad production, the sound is fairly reasonable compared to future black metal releases. The guitars have a distorted buzz to them, but the drums were recorded quite well and each instrument retains a good degree of individuality. The music here is very simple and is fairly close to old punk and thrash metal. The songs are rather long, but they still manage to flow well. The weird chants and grim spoken word of “Kathaarian Life Code” starts the album with what I believe to be the only piece of music that can still come close to scaring me. “In the Shadow of the Horns” is another excellent song which might be the most memorable on the album as well.

Many might argue that Transilvanian Hunger is the peak of Darkthrone’s career, but this is the album that solidified Darkthrone and black metal as a whole. I believe this to be one of the most important metal releases of all time, and any fan of extreme metal owes it to his/her self to check this out in order to truly understand black metal.