UMUR
F.O.A.D. is the 13th full-length studio album by Norwegian black metal act Darkthrone. The album was released in September 2007 by Peaceville Records.
There was already a notable change in musical style on The Cult Is Alive (2006), as Darkthrone began incorporating punk influences into their brand of black metal, but on F.O.A.D. the band go even further as they incorporate elements from traditional heavy metal and NWOBHM to their sound. While I really enjoyed the band´s new direction on The Cult Is Alive it´s like they went a bit overboard on this album. The basis in the music is still simple black metal which is heavily influenced by the blackened part of the eighties thrash metal movement but the new elements sometimes sound like they were incorporated for fun and not necessarily to sound good. If you don´t mind me saying so, many of these songs sound like they were created while the band were drunk and having fun. There´s almost a total lack of dark and "evil" atmosphere on this album. Titles like Canadian Metal, The Church of Real Metal and Raised on Rock kind of give that away. At least compared to earlier releases. The production values change between songs too which makes the album a bit of a disjointed affair.
OK this is not an album that I find much interest in, but you gotta give it to them. They still sound unmistakably like Darkthrone and that´s quite impressive when you think about how many changes they made to their core sound on this album. They are like the Motörhead of black metal in terms of putting out series of albums that sound more or less like each other but with little changes that make each album stand out from the others. A 2.5 - 3 star rating is warranted.