Having failed to recapture the magic of their early to mid 90’s heyday with lifeless and boring albums like “Ravishing Grimness” and “Plaguewielder”, Darkthrone realised they had to do something different in order to disguise the fact that they were an utterly spent force.
With all the thousands of bands copying their 90’s black metal style, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto decided to go back to their early youth and make novelty albums combining all their favourite 80’s metal bits into one easily digestible and forgettable meal of putrid mush.
“This’ll be really cool,” Fenriz thought. “We can have our own generic Eddie figure on the album covers, use silly song titles and have a real laugh while making money off of hipsters so as I don’t have to go and work in the post office again. Yeah, that’ll be totally boss.”
“Dark Thrones and Black Flags” (cute title by the way) continues where “F.O.A.D.” left off, in other words, by insulting the intelligence of metallers and delighting the irony-o-meters of hipsters with its self-referential, catchy punk metal that makes a lot of noise but says nothing. Each track zips by in a low production breeze of self-satisfied smugness (we could do better than this but we don’t care anymore), barely registering on the listener’s consciousness, much like pop music.
Whereas Darkthrone’s classic albums took their influences and remolded them into something new and evolving, here Fenriz and company are like babies playing with their own faeces. “Remember when this was Deathstrike?” 2 month old Fenriz says, his hands cupping some green sludge, “somehow it’s turned into poo. Oh well who cares, let’s send it to Peaceville, they can polish it up and sell it.”
Avoid this album at all costs. Having this CD on your shelf is the same as having a row of Star Wars toys in your bedroom. “Don’t you get it? It’s nostalgic and ironic.” Go die, as Fenriz would say.
Yet again it’s been brought to our attention that Fenriz is still cut up about Antihumanism.com’s strong criticism of “new” Darkthrone.