There was a time when the black metal crafted by Darkthrone was getting shitty. Really shitty. These dudes are untouchable, so some may not agree, some may not want to admit it. But have you heard Plaguewielder? The fantastic duo had ran out of fresh ideas. Their ravishing grimness wasn’t all that ravishing nor grim anymore. By that point they must have felt like their whole shpiel was as good as stale bread. So they made the move and amplified their sound. Embracing the directness of crusty punk rock, their releases were given a jolt of adrenaline. The formula was simple; forget the attempts at raw grimness and the shrieks and work on your drive (the pace and the spirit) and your riffs (the metal). The move has allowed them to stay prolific over the current decade and has given a facelift to one of the most emblematic black metal bands in history.
I stopped counting about six years ago, but Circle the Wagons must be Darkthrone’s fiftieth release. Somewhere around that. It follows the lead of 2008’s Dark Thrones and Black Flags and batters the same downtrodden path. It improves on the last record on a few fronts. For starters, the sound is excellent. It really doesn’t get more organic than this. This is one of those bands that genuinely seems to have skipped the last twenty years of technology. The songs sound live and crisp. Perfectly balanced and untouched by the digital age.
And the songs themselves are stellar. If before Darkthrone were mixing extreme metal with punk now they seem to have forgotten their first decade of existence (when they were pure blackness) and as a result have come out with an album that’s pure punked up 80’s metal. By the way, there is a diminished emphasis in the punk here. This is rowdy metal fellas, and when Fenriz says ‘break your chains or circle the wagons’ he might as well be inciting all those left out purists to move on and to embrace all forms of extreme music. Starting with something from the 80’s.
The guitars that shape Circle the Wagons are pure classic metal. From the years before Destruction, Sodom and Kreator sped up the tempos. From the bands that went not the NWOBHM way. Because of the vocals some of the songs sound like a more articulate early Celtic Frost. Some is pure Tom G Warrior worship, but the music is far more advanced and dynamic and contains a wider variety of moods. Not so doom. The song “I Am the Graves of the 80’s” for instance, is among the best this band has ever written, while others score just as high.
I doubt there are many skeptics left, but there sure are those who think that Darkthrone gets a free pass because of their history and their stance within the underground community. This album should help dispel all those doubts.
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