DARKTHRONE — A Blaze In The Northern Sky (review)

DARKTHRONE — A Blaze In The Northern Sky album cover

Album · 1992 · Black Metal

3/5 · 2022-02-11
UMUR

"A Blaze in the Northern Sky" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Norwegian black metal act Darkthrone. The album was released through Peaceville Records in February 1992. It´s the successor to "Soulside Journey" from 1991, but the instrumental part of the material for a full sophomore album was actually recorded in rehearsal in late 1990/early 1991, but shelved because the band felt a need for a drastic change in musical direction (the rehearsal was later released as the "Goatlord (1996)" album with added vocals).

"Soulside Journey (1991)" featured an occult themed technically well played old school Scandinavian death metal sound and was recorded at Sunlight Studios with producer Tomas Skogsberg, so while it´s not a Swedish death metal album, it has a lot of similar features to some of the prolific contemporary Swedish albums in the genre like "Left Hand Path (1990)" by Entombed, "Dark Recollections (1990)" by Carnage, and "Like an Ever Flowing Stream (1991)" by Dismember.

Stylistically the material on "A Blaze in the Northern Sky" very much feels like a determined and very deliberate attempt at writing and releasing something completely different and a way of distancing themselves from the contemporary Scandinavian death metal scene. "A Blaze in the Northern Sky" features a simple, raw, and lo-fi (compared to the sound production on the predecessor) produced black metal style (it´s artists like Hellhammer/Celtic Frost and Bathory who Darkthrone sound influenced by), which sounds like it´s a completely different band playing to the Darkthrone who released "Soulside Journey (1991)". The truth is it´s not, as the lineup who recorded the predecessor is intact, although bassist Dag Nilsen was on his way out (he is only credited as a session musician on the album).

I don´t know if it´s the change in musical direction or the fact that the bass is not audible in the thin high end sound production, which resulted in Nilsen leaving, but the changes in musical style and production values sure are drastic. It came as a complete shock to many fans of the debut album, but provided Darkthrone new fans, who found the new black metal direction interesting.

"A Blaze in the Northern Sky" features 6 tracks and a full playing time of 42:03 minutes, so most of the tracks are relatively long (with opening track "Kathaarian Life Code" clocking in at 10:39 minutes being the longest). Although some parts are repeated the tracks don´t follow a "regular" vers/chorus formula, and they are generally unconventionally structured. That´s one of the exciting features of the album (although a hook here and there could have made the album a bit more accessible), and the organic performances is another, but unfortunately the sound production is a bit of a mess.

I know that old school black metal releases are suppossed to sound thin (the bass not audible), raw to the bone, and almost demo like in nature, but to my ears that concept is taken a bit too far on "A Blaze in the Northern Sky". It´s just not a very well sounding release and it makes it hard to enjoy the music, which is generally not great, but not of a bad quality either. In my world that sums up to about a 3 star (60%) rating and I even feel like I´m stretching a bit here. I hate to rate what others consider a "classic" release so low, but personally there´s very little I perceive as quality features on the album. The songwriting is so and so (although I enjoy the anarchistic approach to structure) and the sound production is below normal standards for a studio release. Peaceville Records was also initially reluctant to release the album, as the label expected something a bit more like "Soulside Journey (1991)", but I guess time has proven both them and me wrong.

more than 2 years ago
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siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Actually i think i'm the minority. I love Soulside Journey and i love both lo-fi black metal as well as slickly produced black metal. It's all good and this particular album is a classic in that it was the album that launched the entire second wave black metal scene. Mayhem should've been first but they were too busy being hooligans. Just listened to all these early Darkthrone albums recently and they still remain some insanely intense monstrosities of manic metal.

Tupan wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I must be the minority here, but I prefer my black metal with a good production (not overproduced, but also not sounding like it was recorded in a bathroom!).

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Well, as you can read I´m not a fan either, and I absolutely adore "Soulside Journey".