Album of the week: Darkthrone - It beckons us all

 

For the idea behind the album of the week, go here. (It is becoming more like the album of the month, but I'm defiantly carrying on as best as I can. ;-))      

As the work load is increasing and the weather is turning bleaker, I felt the desperate desire to hide for an hour to hide in the cocoon of music to get away from it all.

I've known Darkthrone for a long time. I love their highly influential and classical early records (the first four) as they were one of the introductions to black metal and I remain a lover of the second wave of black metal, especially Norwegian black metal of that time. The middle part of Darkthrone I must confess I'm not overly familiar with, but I listened to some of the newer punk-ish, crust music (e.g. The Cult is Alive; F.O.A.D). Their latest music I haven't really checked out, but given the somber weather at the moment, I felt the urge to check up on their latest album "It beckons us all". 

The music on this album is not as punkish as the albums mentioned above. Set mostly in mid-tempo and with a rather darkened heavy-metal riffing with twin-leads sprinkled in here and there, you can feel the decisive influence of early Celtic Frost with often slow, string-bending riffs and a at times doomy atmosphere. Though I think that the album would greatly benefit from an occassional injection of speed as it sometimes meanders a bit, I can't deny that Darkthrone continues to scratch the proverbial itch of mine, causing me to like album perhaps a bit more than I should given the sometimes formulaic writing and plodding riffs.

The last track is perhaps the greatest experiment of Darkthrone my ears have heard as the song, introduced by clean guitars in the vein of Pink Floyd, is rather progressive and bears resemblances to both the aforemntioned Pink Floyd, but also to The Doors or Black Sabbath (to my ears). I might have to close the gap from e.g. "The Cult is Alive" to "It beckons us all" to see how we got there in the future.

Standout tracks: the progressive and weird "The Lone Pines of The Forest" (though I'm not even sure it all adds up); the epic instrumental "And in that Moment I Knew the Answer" (giving me vibes of Dimmu Borgir's "For All Tid", which I love to this day)