Darkthrone - Under a Funeral Moon (1993) Reviews

True black metal in its coldest, nastiest form.

Darkthrone knew exactly what they were doing when they created the classic that is A Blaze in the Northern Sky. They shed most of their death metal traits and plunged headlong into the coldest, rawest black metal imaginable at that time. I also have no doubt that these crazy Norwegians knew exactly what they were doing when they decided to take the production down even further for their next album entitled Under a Funeral Moon. Any remaining death metal in their sound was completely left behind and the song structures took on a more simple, repetitive style that is still imitated by countless bands today. The drums are almost lost at times, the guitars have a fuzzing chainsaw sound going on, the leads are chaotic outbursts and Nocturno Culto's vocals are as venomous as they would ever be. It all adds up to black metal in the truest sense and Darkthrone certainly deserve respect for unleashing it upon the world.

As for highlights, opener Natassja in Eternal Sleep would have to be my favourite track on the album, but the Bathory worshiping To Walk the Infernal Fields is not far behind. In fact, there is a lot of Bathory influence showing up on this release, with the leads having an almost identical sound to the one Quorthon used on his early albums. For me, Under a Funeral Moon is a great black metal album, but I don't listen to it as much as A Blaze in the Northern Sky. When I do, the first thing I notice is how damn great the vocals are. They sound horrifically evil which is just the way this genre of music demands they be. If you like your black metal raw and nasty, then you probably already own this release. If you haven't heard Darkthrone before, try not to run away screaming on your first attempt and please, ignore the punk shite that they are excreting in more recent years.

I've been listening to extreme metal whenever I wanna tune out certain noises whether inside or outside, and recently I had re-evaluated Darkthrone's A Blaze in the Northern Sky along with Blut aus Nord's Hallucinogen, three Emperor albums, the Gris debut, etc. etc.  Even with worse headphones that I use for outdoor stuff, Blaze incredibly creative, dark and intense, standing with many of the giants I just named.  Now I could get behind lo-fi production for black metal and I love it when it works.  But in comparison to Blaze, Under a Funeral Moon is much worse to me.  That creative writing and absurdity that made Blaze surreal is completely gone, taking away a large portion of Darkthrone's personality and making the music generic.  The lo-fi production is actually getting in the way of the percussions displaying full force, also making it generic.  This especially hurts when we're dealing with much longer songs like the eight-minute To Walk the Infernal Fields, which barely takes the time to do anything unique or inspiring until halfway through, with less effect than the wonderful opener of Blaze.  This might be an early keystone for the development of black metal, but everything about this album is only half as good as what was on Blaze.  Strangely enough, this re-evaluation also makes me happy to have another hot take.