DARKTHRONE — Soulside Journey (review)

DARKTHRONE — Soulside Journey album cover

Album · 1991 · Death Metal

4/5 · 2011-02-11
UMUR

Soulside Journey is the debut full-length studio album by Norwegian death metal ( later black metal) act Darkthrone. The album was released in January 1991 by Peaceville Records. Soulside Journey is the only death metal album released by Darkthrone as the band would abandon the death metal style in favour of black metal after the release of this album. There are still traces of death metal on A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992) ( the 2nd album by Darkthrone) but I wouldn´t call the music on that album death metal. I used to own Soulside Journey on vinyl, but I gave it away to a good friend who is a Darkthrone fanatic, because I felt it would bring more joy to him than it did to me at the time. I was so disappointed with Darkthrone by the end of the nineties, that I simply gave up on them. In retrospect I really miss my vinyl version, but I´ve purchased Soulside Journey again in the 2003 remastered CD digipack version and that´s a small comfort.

It doesn´t say on the cover of the album but since Soulside Journey was produced by Tomas Skogsberg I assume that the album was recorded in the legendary Sunlight Studio in Stockholm, Sweden. The production points that way and while the music on Soulside Journey isn´t exactly old school Swedish death metal, it´s that death metal style the album has most similarities to. The obscure and somber mood of Mental Funeral (1991)-era Autopsy also comes to mind. Darkthrone had a cold mystique to them that was unique at the time though and the occult lyrics by Fenriz ( who called himself Hank Amarillo on the original print of the album) also had an edge to them. I´m thinking H.P. Lovecraft at times. The vocals are brutal and the songs are raw but there are several twists and turns to keep them interesting throughout and distinguisable from each other.

The musicianship needs a special mention here. Simply because it´s on such a high level that Soulside Journey sounds so vastly different from the simple and at times loose and sloppy playing of later Darkthrone releases. Fans of later Darkthrone releases, who have not previously listened to Soulside Journey, will probably listen in bewilderment while Fenriz whips up a storm of ( for the time) quite technical drumming. There´s an authentic organic touch to the playing though, so it´s not like the drums are triggered to hell or recorded with the use of click-track or something like that. The rest of the band are also very well playing.

The production is one of the best sounds created by Tomas Skogsberg in the first years of the nineties. It really stands out as something special to my ears. Raw and brutal but quite detailed.

Soulside Journey is IMO one of the most important Scandinavian death metal releases from the early nineties and personally I was struck with horror at the direction Darkthrone took their music after this album, but I guess in retrospect that decision payed off. I still dream of what would have happened on a second album if the band have opted to continue to play death metal though, but of course it´s a waste of time and I guess I have to accept that it´s actually Soulside Journey that´s the odd album in Darkthrone´s discography and not the rest of their output ( LOL). A 4 star rating is well deserved.