Review by Saxy S for Darkthrone - A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992)

I think that it often gets overlooked that Black Metal was once an elaboration of the original hardcore punk scene from the 1980s. And this genre's earliest trend-setters were bands such as Venom, Hellhammer and Bathory, and each can be easily debated whether or not they were a punk/thrash metal band, or the originators of the black metal sound.

It wasn't until 1992 that Darkthrone would release A Blaze in the Northern Sky and would change the black metal sound forever. They did it by incorporating more trends that were popular in the death metal scene, which was also in its early stages around this time.

And I do respect A Blaze in the Northern Sky for what it represented for the genre at this time and pushing it to where t is today, but looking back on this album years later, I'm not its biggest fan.

But let's talk about what it does. I already mentioned the death metal tendencies, making it heavier than early black metal. Song lengths are elongated, the harsh vocals have picked up the screeching timbre as opposed to screams. The album is dark and dissonant and noisy. And while I do respect that as a black metal trend, it isn't one that I particularly like.

I enjoy a good dissonant song/album, as long as the dissonance is used properly. Such as to highlight a moment of anger, anxiety or fury. With A Blaze in the Northern Sky, dissonance is used almost regularly, while the albums more melodic moments ("In the Shadow of the Horns", "Where Cold Winds Blow", etc.) are reduced and kept towards the end of each track.

Now this is where I might hope that the production could help save the less than ideal songwriting, but it's all so muddy and compressed. Yes, there is plenty of bass, a trend that I wish more black metal bands from the second wave would have used. But the guitars sound so cheap fuzzy. I thought this album was supposed to be pummeling and raw. These guitars don't deliver the punch that others in the genre would provide.

It also doesn't help that the percussion is also mixed pretty poorly as well. The drums are constantly fading in and out of time, and this becomes most apparent when Fenriz is playing blast beats. I understand that the band is trying for a D.I.Y. setup and having it sound rough is par for the course in early hardcore punk. But this is 1992. We were getting much better mixed extreme metal albums from Death and Atheist just one year before.

I feel awkward reviewing an album like this. I see its appeal among the heavy metal community as one of the genre's most influential pieces of work, and how its presence paved the way for all of the different branches and forms that black metal would take over the coming years. But I still don't see it as a great album. The bad production and the poor song structure leave this as just mediocre for me.