The grim, snowy peak of black metal's fetid reign. 'Transylvanian...', complete with Fenriz adorned in corpse paint cover holding a fiery candelabra, was another black journey into the pitch pit of necro sound. The riffs remain cold, at times repetitive in their evil, and Fenriz drums like it's his last day on this grey planet. Everything is kept reasonably simple, yet somehow the band scrape back the hideous nightmares once created by Bathory and Hellhammer, but this is even more desolate and dark, often thick and suffocating like foul smog. All eight tracks have a similar, alienating structure, the title cut is simply a five-minute cold blitz of frost upon the face, but there's never any let up, a majority of the record is played at a disconcerting, unsettling pace, punctuated by the harsh, raw vocals.
Darkthrone created a cavernous feel to their early records, effortlessly painting some of the most grotesque imagery known to metal that, albeit for a handful of stark years, ripped the face of metal and spat in the commercial eye of music in general. The marches of war had truly begun within a scene that remains potent, but nothing will ever compare to those early '90s when the noise created from Darkthrone was seriously threatening and alienating.
8/10
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