Fenriz of Darkthrone issues statement to Antihumanism.com
Fenriz, drummer and songwriter with legendary Norwegian black metal band Darkthrone, yesterday issued a brief statement to Antihumanism.com via the band’s official myspace page.
In it, he angrily claimed that we were wrong for insisting seminal Darkthrone albums such as “Under a Funeral Moon” are far superior to more recent gimmicky efforts like “F.O.A.D.”.
He went on to state that he wrote and recorded the influential masterpiece, “Transilvanian Hunger”, in just two weeks, whereas it now took him two or three months to write a single track for poorly conceived travesties like “Dark Thrones and Black Flags”. ’90s black metal is easy and more or less for little kids’, he added.
Finally, in a John McEnroe style outburst of childish boo-hooing, he demanded that we ‘go die’.
In response, Antihumanism.com would like to say that, like Tom G. Warrior once did (before he saw sense), Fenriz has forgotten that it was the incredible and visionary music of his early years that founded his reputation and status in the international metal scene.
It is those classic albums that have remained firm favourites since the early 1990’s, while their latest releases will quickly fade into nothingness by 2010, once the novelty has worn off.
But while he still has new product to shift, Fenriz will sadly continue to dismiss his early work as mere juvenalia, rather than admit that he lost his way artistically many years ago.
There will be those who claim in their defence that ‘Darkthrone have always done what they want’. This is patently untrue, and also, condones the sort of liberal, destructive humanist behaviour that we at Antihumanism.com condemn utterly as the cancerous tumour at the heart of modern artistic endeavour and society as a whole.
‘Doing whatever you want’ is the mantra of businessmen who want you to consume and buy and act however you like, with no regard for the consequences of those actions because that brings them the greatest profit. This is not an ideology compatible with the early 90’s black metal of Darkthrone.
To understand why ”Transilvanian Hunger” is hailed as a great work of art, while the likes of “Ravishing Grimness” are not, click here.
Tags: black metal, dark thrones and black flags, Darkthrone, Fenriz, FOAD, interview, myspace, transilvanian hunger, under a funeral moon
May 15th, 2009 at 10:58 am
I hope you all have heard the comedy metal of Black Death (pre-Darkthrone demo band).
May 15th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Darkthrone reigns supreme… there isn’t new and old Darkthrone. Older works are influential, but only to few bands, because endless ocean of posers tried to clone Transilvanian Hangover and they failed. Newer works are for real metalheads, not bedroom fucks with lame corpsepaint. Antihumanism? hahaha, get a life…
May 16th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Darkthrone was better as an old school technical death metal band. Their album “Soulside Journey” is one of the best albums ever released. The rest is not on that level. Everything worth giving a damn was released before “Ravishing Grimness”. “Total Death” is their last good album.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:07 am
LOL @ the guy who says newer Darkthrone is for “real metalheads”. Actually, real metalheads know better than to listen to half-assed shit like FOAD or whatever, give me Celtic Frost anyday you clueless wanker.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:24 am
go and kill yourself misantrophic fags
May 16th, 2009 at 10:31 am
FENRIZ GOT PWNED, SIMPLE AS! LOL!!!
May 17th, 2009 at 4:58 am
“Grimwarrior616ofdeath”: who said anything about misanthropy? We don’t hate mankind, we actually want it to improve, starting with the sterilisation and phasing out of redundant people like yourself.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
hey i am gay
May 17th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Soulside Journey is good. but unlike many people, I prefer black metal Darkthrone. the people who write for this site are just faggoty hipsters who embrace pretentiousness and are subversive to plain old rock n roll attitude
May 17th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
you are a bunch of narrowmindeds, last Darkthrone albums are raw and fucking oldschool black metal, they are 90s black metal no more if you don’t like it you can still insert you penis on the Transilvanian CDs. fuck offf.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:06 am
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
fucking antihuman fags
It’s not metal to try to be elitist in some norwegian forests or extinguish the weak. just fukk off.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Hey Mr grimwarrior, what makes you so “grim” then? Do you think it’s metal to act like an illiterate spaz?
You seem to be retarded so maybe you didn’t understand, but antihumanism isn’t the same as “antihuman”.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
lol, more anus faggotry.
Fenriz is right, Black Metal is for little kids, which he was when he made Darkthronel in fact nearly anything claiming to be “XTREEM” is by and for little kids.
Hail true metal! Heavy/Speed/Thrash/Power
Oh, and lol, Transylvanian Hunger must be a “great work of art” to autists with brain damage. Completely shallow piece of shit any way you look at it. The best thing Fenriz was ever involved in was Storm.
May 18th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
You failed by seing stuff in black metal that wasn’t there, the new dartkhrone stuff is the real stuff. Its passionate and true. Go back listening to deathspell omega or something bunch of hipster faggots.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:49 am
New Darkthrone isn’t “passionate”, it’s souless and worse: it’s BORING. It’s also very gimmicky (track titles, cover art etc) just like hipster bands.
There are millions of useless underground bands playing the level of music to be found on “FOAD”, but you don’t buy those because they’re shit and they haven’t got the Darkthrone logo on them. Why so desperate to find excuses for Fenriz and co?
Deathspell Omega are pointless too by the way and always have been.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:03 am
I can honestly see where Fenriz is coming from; but for the record, I love both Darkthrone’s early AND newer releases, and I can assure you the latter will still be the case way past 2010.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:39 am
He’s kind of write, if he’s arguing from a musicianship pov.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:52 pm
I think Fenriz’s frustration is valid, and since when is it the fan’s job to tell the artist what they create is true or not? Do as you wish, make what you want. The people behind this site sicken me, sitting at home all day and blabbing about what deserves the underground’s merit or what doesn’t is a null and stupid point. If Fenriz truly enjoys his output then more power to him, we all know nothing like their first two bm albums will ever be recreated, and it shouldn’t be!
You call new Darkthrone boring, yet suck the proverbial tit of TH which is their most boring work. By no means is their new stuff great, but there are parts of some songs that are interesting (the main riff of the first track on Darkthrones.. is awesome). If you know they’ve done nothing good for the past 13 years why are you still complaining?
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Venom probably recorded their two first albums in less time than their last over produced albums. The result is that their old albums are better than the last ones. This thing happens to many bands, Darkthrone are one of them and Fenriz is pissed off.
Darkthrone was good till Panzerfaust, the rest is less interesting imo.
May 24th, 2009 at 2:58 am
“IAmAnElitistLOL”: Our stance on Darkthrone’s newer output has nothing to do with “elitism” and everything to do with the ability to discern good from bad.
You already admit yourself that new Darkthrone is far from great, so why waste your time listening to it? People who value their time don’t waste it on anything mediocre.
May 31st, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Dude, did you guys know that the entire world waits with baited breath to hear your thoughts on some websites’ ideology concerning death and black metal albums? Seriously! Everyone cares SO much!
Ideas are ideas. You want to undermine them? Let them play out to their natural conclusion. If you don’t feel this is adequate, ask yourself why not. Are you frightened that perhaps your idea is the failing one and that when it reaches its logical conclusion that it will be revealed as the rampant spasm of fanboyism that it really is? All I’ve ever known ANUS.com and its affiliates to promote is observing patterns in reality and basing community values from them, while interjecting meaning into this process. Oh boy, that sure sounds like Nordic racist elitism now doesn’t it!? Focus on family, community, and people, who the fuck doesn’t want that?
June 1st, 2009 at 10:27 am
Composition wise Grand Declaration and Chimera are by far the best Albums.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Johannus: even if we were actually talking about Mayhem here and not Darkthrone, you still fail.
Galvanized: try to calm down in between writing something and actually posting it. You come across like an incoherent crazy person.
June 8th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
hahah he says black metal is for kids, how can he say that (he needs to be more modest) ?! all the old darkthrone are pure black metal except 1st album. bad way of thinking
July 1st, 2009 at 11:47 am
There is a difference between downright stupid hipster irony and not taking black metal as seriously as you wish it should be.
I believe you guys surestimate black metal artists, some of them sure have created some fascinating work that are a fertile ground for deeper thoughts and imaginations. Often in directions towards which the artists themselves have hinted.
But it sounds a bit foolish to have such an ideological reading of this music. There is also a lot of simple tweenager rebel spirit (the kind of stuff that can last well into your 30s in comfy developed places like Norway) in it, not that different from what had fueled early punk musicians. Which is something that most Black Metal artists will not deny.
I have been looking around your site, and I can’t help but wonder who are the useless and stupid people out there that you wish we get rid.
Someone who listens to Deathspell Omega maybe? An artist? A philosopher who you don’t agree with?
I do agree on many of your constatations, but I try to keep a drop of intellectual humility and remember that what I might find useless or stupid (like black metal elitists) could very well have their place in a healthy world.
This combination of flaming humourous (and narrow-minded) musical reviews combined with your ideology just gives the impression that while you want to work for a universal greater good (a healthy humanity in a healthy world) you focus arbitrarily on some things that annoy you as persons. This is not working for your credibility, making you just sound like a better educated bunch of angry and arbitrarily intolerant metalheads.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Listen, he knows black metal better than any of you lame fucks, you included ‘anit-humanism’ you pretentious bunch of fucking faggots. If you’re so anti-human why do you have a fucking website, POSER FUCKS. Go crank in the rain with corpse paint on your dick whilst listening to fucking Emperor. Counter-generic hipster losers. Fenriz KNOWS black metal, you do not, or obviously he wouldn’t have had to CORRECT you in the first place. Were you in one of the 4 MOST INFLUENCIAL NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL BANDS??? No. So you really no NOTHING about bm do you. And neither do I, but I appreciate THE MUSIC, most importantly. Darkthrone has always been true MUSICALLY, all you fucks do is sit round banging on about about how good the first 3 bm Darkthrone albums were. Well done. Any RETARD knows that. What you gonna tell me next? Serioulsy guys, next time you post something, have a fucking POINT. Now go away please, and fucking blog bad Ulver records or something.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:43 am
FOAD: wow, you think your opinion really matters to anyone but yourself, how cute. It’s hilarious how some of you morons actually get personally offended by our writing. Maybe it’s because you know we’re right and that makes you feel foolish?
The point of the article is this: Fenriz has become self-indulgent. His new music sucks and he knows this, but in order for idiot hipsters and fanboys like you to go out and buy it he has to convince you that it’s as good or better than the classic material. Which is what he tried to do here by claiming his new gimmicky garbage is somehow “authentic” and only for tr00 metalhedz. For the intelligent metaller who can smell a rat a mile off, he fails bigtime.
Furthermore, it’s anti-humanism not anti-human, the distinction evidently being lost on people with subpar IQs. I could argue further with you but you obviously have learning difficulties so I won’t waste anymore of my time. Go back to your couch, peasant.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:21 am
“It’s hilarious how some of you morons actually get personally offended by our writing. Maybe it’s because you know we’re right and that makes you feel foolish?”
Don’t know the answer but agree with the first statement, V.funny indeed. Makes you wonder if some of these people might be Fenriz himself, LOL.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Sorry, ‘anit-humanism’ or whatever. I apologise for my lack of IQ, I was raised a PEASANT and had to forrage for myself alone in the woods. I am so offended by your ‘writing’ that I will return to my troglodyte lifestyle that loves me more than the sorry Admin guys regulating boring comments. You are beside yourselves with fear that Fenriz called you out yet I am the one left feeling foolish. Oh, the pain. I am nor a hipster or fanboy just a REAL METAL fan who would love nothing better than for people like you to go back to working at a supermarket or whatevr you guys did before writing became your ‘forte’. You are clearly out of your depth here and your nerdy IT buddies handiwork on making your blog into a website cannot hid that. Fuck you guys, I hope you die a painful death alone, listening to whatever sub-Darkthrone wannabe you think is ‘hesh’ this week. Really guys, really. And FUCK my opinion, I was sharing a general opinion. Maybe next time you guys can do Vice a mixtape while your ma gives you that breastfeeding you obviously sorely lost out on. But seriously guys, go back to blogging, its suited to your ’style’. Thanks for your reply, I wont be checking back for more of your ‘tips’ on how to be the ultimate bastard metal fan. FOAD now please.
July 16th, 2009 at 4:12 am
Why does Admin have to “FOAD” (god what a lame phrase)? It’s his blog your commenting at you idiot.
FOAD got seriously butthurt here, haha, what an epic and crybaby fail of a reply: “I’m not coming back to your blog anymore boo hoo”. I’d quite like to be the “ultimate bastard metal fan” btw, classic stuff.
Anway, the article is 100% right, and antihumanism called Fenriz out, not the other way round.
July 26th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Doing what brings you gratification in an artistic capacity is not at all comparable to a businessman slinging sedate commercial minutiae. Say what ever you want about Fenriz but he is clearly not some crass salesman nor is he a spokesman for the lowest common denominator. The only consequences of Darkthrone’s self-transcending regression through other styles and genres are perhaps that others might learn to question the validity of this black metal sacred cow bullshit. If you revere the old Darkthrone material as you claim to you should be happy the band aren’t cannibalizing and desecrating the credibility of their past efforts by needlessly retreading them. How exactly the hell do you practically apply this “anti-humanistic” credo to art anyways? You would take the individual license out of the creative act? One hallmark of good art is that it is dangerous and the threat should extend to imperative values such as those promoted by this site.
Also, Fenriz hasn’t disowned his past work but simply doesn’t want to belong to what has become a hollow trend. This is the same attitude that caused Darkthrone to abandon death metal, the attitude that acted as the very impetus for those early Darkthrone classics we all love. Furthermore, it takes courage to turn your back to some extent on something that has brought you accolade and high-repute when you cease to believe in it.
I empathize with many of the ideals expressed on this site but you had better be prepared to do something more than espouse a belief through a blog to qualify as anything more than an armchair ideologue or attention seeker. Another cancer is the free proliferation of what I’ll call ‘inactivistic ideology’ over the internet. Your suggested methods of dissemination lack the conviction of these lofty anti-humanistic ethics you boast. Stop kidding yourself. You promote only smugness. It amounts to nothing more than a pin on your lapel at the end of the day or ego-fashion through pseudo-discourse. Personally, I’d rather be a dispirited realist than a poser.
July 26th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
PS: Too bad about this article because I really dig some of the other entries on this blog even if there are a few too many sophomoric references to cocks.
Also, that line should have read: “Furthermore, it takes courage to turn your back to some extent on something you have ceased to believe in when it has brought you accolade and high-repute.”
August 2nd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Damn you guys are really pissed. I bought the last 2 darkthrone albums. They were fine I guess. I liked their last 2 albums as much as I enjoyed tim capello.
August 14th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I see much more than many reasons to like Darkthrone but it disturbs me to see fans discarding their later efforts.Maybe it’s not your type but it doesn’t suck which is why you should keep your idle away from the sight,i am not sure if i read it correct but somebody mentioned that entire world awaits at breath to read interviews..eeveryone cares so much!This is pure fucking true,i like to go through every pile of interview and to have some biased blashpesmy on it is deep insult to the artist and fuck you to avid readers like me and many of above.
September 17th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
First off, I find it hard to believe that this blog is a link from the metal archives website–specifically, Darkthrone’s page. It seems a little disingenuous, subversive, and well, smacks of a childish way of saying/writing something that you would never say directly to someone’s face, likely in the same way I suspect you sat in high school and drew little caricatures of your classmates or pseudo-satanic images on your binder. I’d be willing to bet you’re under thirty years of age.
Regarding this website, the “most hated blog in the world”, it doesn’t offer any real criticisms beyond the usual hyperinflated complaints everybody else who lives under capitalism has. It’s full of the same old “we/they” dialectic that usually permeates writing of this kind, full of general isms sprinkled
with cherry picked quotes taken out of context. Your “answer”, to “do away with the obsolete morality,” and “breed better humans, and fewer of them” has so many philosophic and rabid holes in it I don’t know where to start other than the fact that you would be the first to go.
Regarding Darkthrone’s later output, I do agree that comfort breeds regularity, and that art is going to suffer for it. However, to pound the same terrain over and over doesn’t further the art or the artist. Naturally, we turn off when we see the masses embrace a thing we’ve admired for a long time. We then tend to distance ourselves from it, and criticize, and look for the next thing, or retreat to the art of the past. I liked Darkthrone’s latest album, in the same way I might enjoy Guided By Voices output: hidden gems wrapped in raw recorded sound–a guitar bit, a lyric, an idea. I have a feeling you only listened to it once. That’s your prerogative. Authentic Creativity is hard, motherfucker.
Lastly, regardless of musical output, Fenriz spends alot of time furthering the scene—listening to tapes/demos, shouting out new bands, doing interviews, helping preserve forests in Norway–helping humans. But I guess that doesn’t jive with smallminded, reactionary antihumanism.
November 17th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Fenriz and Nocturno stopped playing Black Metal because of what it’s become. Basically… A JOKE!
Do you really think it’s a good idea for them to play Black Metal again when you have bands like Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth out there making a mockery of Black Metal?
It’s not like they released a pop punk album and are opening shows for scene metal bands like most Black Metal bands are doing these days.
February 14th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
anyone who did not see this coming-i.e. the turning of Darkthrone into Anthrax “rock” buffoonery-once they signed to Moonfog-is delusional.
As for people complaining why would they continue to play BM with bands like Dimmu and COF-newsflash-those bands were around when Blaze & Hunger came out!!!
Darkthrone have always been “scenesters”-they look for what could be the next “genre” they can jump into. They discarded prog death metal when they “found” BM-discarded BM when they jumped onto the “Punk” thing….(BTW-it was soooooo amusing in an issue of Metal Maniacs from 03 when Fenriz first started name dropping Punk bands as “influences”-like GG Allin-LMAO. I defy ANYONE to present any other interview prior to 03 where Fenriz or NC proclaims Punk as an “influence”.
A few years from now when they “bored” with the hideous “crust punk” crap (which even crust punk bands don’t want anything to do with them) and start playing Jazz fusion Country Western and their new wannabe fan base clamors “what?? they have ALWAYS BEEN Jazz Fusion C & W”
Don’t get me wrong…I love the Throne…even Ravishing has it’s moments…
but anyone who does not think their new stuff (come one..”Rasied On Rock”..WTF??? LMAO) is not just utter gargabe…is not paying attention…
PS-Fenriz also sounds like a dope in “Until The Light…”
He is not funny, smart-or cool. They should have continued the path of staying out of the “light”..kept the mystique alive….they both just sound like moronic, drunken stoners…