Review by Rexorcist for Darkthrone - Under a Funeral Moon (1993)

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.