From their formation back in 1986, to becoming one of Norway’s finest and enigmatic musical exports (with a number of highly revered black metal masterpieces released in the early 90’s helping to solidify their legacy), Darkthrone has continued to evolve and challenge in equal measure, throughout their illustrious recording career spanning over three decades. And now, the ever-productive duo of Nocturno and Fenriz continue their own metallic saga with a new selection of fine, vintage sounding headbanging classics in the making .. Astral Fortress

This new studio opus is a swift follow-up to 2021’s Eternal Hails opus, as a result of Darkthrone’s consistent and ongoing writing process, which has been in force for some years now.

For Darkthrone does not sleep – it only waits.

Carried on the brisk wind of eager rock, with foundations in black, thrash, doom and heavy metal, Astral Fortress is the latest album of stellar, eclectic old metal in the Darkthrone odyssey. With a seemingly endless dungeon full of heavy metal influences channelled through Darkthrone’s dynamic riff-machine, plus also with many increasing inspirations taken from their own past catalogue.

Fenriz comments “As usual, Ted makes music by playing himself and riffs just come to me. I think since 2016’s ARCTIC THUNDER, we have mostly been inspired by our own back catalogue. I can hear many of my riffs eventually sounding like a plethora of bands but this seldom seems to correlate with what others hear. As you’ll know by now I never talk about the lyrics or the inspiration behind them and I would never want any lyrics that I like of others to be explained to me but I will tell you this, it is darker than ever, it is seething with hell.”

Even though sprinkled with atmospheric touches such as synthesizers and mellotron on Astral Fortress to great effect, the Darkthrone sound remains stripped down to the core; always primitive and organic. Darkthrone has truly become its own beast within the metal world.

‘Astral Fortress’ was recorded at Chaka Khan Studios in Oslo, the same location used for the Eternal Hails album, with Ole Øvstedal and Silje Høgevold.

Astral Fortress is available on the following formats : 

• Limited Edition Deluxe boxed edition: includes Astral Fortress on CD, an exclusive clear vinyl LP & cassette, printed letter from Fenriz and exclusive art prints all housed in a heavy duty lift off lid box
• Limited edition curacao blue coloured LP – exclusively available through the Peaceville stores
• CD
• LP
• Digital
• Plus other limited edition coloured vinyl LPs are available in stores across the world – gold, white, yellow, green, purple and silver .. a collectors dream .. if you can find them!

“A Blaze In The Northern Sky” Tracklist:

A.1 Kathaarian Life Code [10:39]

A.2 In The Shadow Of The Horns [07:02]

A.3 Paragon Belial [05:20]

B.1 Where Cold Winds Blow [07:26]

B.2 A Blaze In The Northern Sky [04:58]

B.3 The Pagan Winter [06:34]

Darkthrone & Peaceville are marking the 30^th anniversary of the iconic “A Blaze In The Northern Sky” with a strictly limited-edition – 666 copies only – special anniversary clear vinyl LP, special handmade sleeves courtesy of Bartek Rogalewicz at Lodge.Black Temple. All 666 numbered copies will be hand-signed by Fenriz and Nocturno Culto. This edition also contains a refresh of the original 1992 audio master.

ONLY 666 limited numbered copies of ‘A Blaze in the Northern Sky’ on exclusive clear vinyl only available through the Peaceville Stores

• All copies are signed by Fenriz and Nocturno Culto on paper made in year 1666!
• True artisan release redesigned and hand crafted by Bartek Rogalewicz at Lodge.Black Temple.
• Thick 2mm hardcover in handmade black raw paper and paper sourced from an ancient book from year 1666.
• Hand printed using vintage manual woodcut press.
• Printed with custom made silver ink with addition of powdered goat horns.
• Hand numbered.
• 4 pages insert with lyrics and alternate layout.

For the anniversary “A Blaze In The Northern Sky” will also be available on white vinyl LP, black vinyl LP and CD – all with the original cover art and using a refresh of the original 1992 audio master. An anniversary T-shirt with 1992 design will also be available. 

’A Blaze In The Northern Sky’, Darkthrone’s official second album, was originally released in 1992 and was without question the blueprint for the Black Metal scene, spearheading the evolution of the early second wave movement in Norway & beyond. It was hailed on release as an album of true scene-shifting greatness, following their more death metal focussed debut, ’Soulside Journey’.

The rawness apparent on the album (recorded at Creative Studios, the same location as Mayhem’s legendary Deathcrush was put to tape), was unusual for the time and an antithesis to the usual metal production values & standards during the period. With this, Darkthrone’s statement of attitude & intent was clear, and their status as masters of Norwegian black metal was set.

Eternal Hails will be available on the following formats:

• Ltd edition deluxe box set containing – Exclusive purple coloured heavyweight vinyl / CD in alternate digisleeve format / cassette tape / 12 page booklet containing a biography surrounding the creation of the album & studio experience / 10″ art print of David Hardy’s Pluto & Charon painting / handwritten letter print from Fenriz
• CD
• Black 180g vinyl LP
• Oxblood 180g coloured vinyl LP
• Marble 180g coloured vinyl LP exclusive to the Peaceville.com/store
• Picture disc
• Digital

As the legendary John Peel once said of The Fall, “Always different, always the same,” so too one could say the same of Darkthrone. Things change, times change, people change, and yet even when sounding fresh and new and delivering just five tracks in 45 minutes on their 19th album, Eternal Hails, the Norwegian black metal legends remain defiantly and eternally Darkthrone.

 

Since forming in 1986 as Black Death in Kolboton, Norway, Darkthrone have been masters of their art. Dropping the death metal of 1991’s Soulside Journey debut album in favour of a more primitive, black metal sound on the following year’s A Blaze In The Northern Sky, they helped define black metal in the ‘90s through albums like 1993’s Under A Funeral Moon and its follow-up Transilvanian Hunger. Truly, though, Darkthrone remain unique, even in their own canon.

 

On Eternal Hails, the longer, doomier songs reflect drummer Fenriz’s love of doom, taking their time to make their point. For Fenriz, what he and co-conspirator Nocturno Culto have concocted stretches back even further than discovering black metal, to the sounds of the ‘70s and the more freewheeling sounds of bands playing with more expansive themes. This didn’t just make the songs longer, it made them an entirely different beast from the ground up. “When I was a kid growing up with metal I kept looking for bands with long songs. Black Sabbath had many, and Celtic Frost’s ‘Dawn Of Meggido’ had a long song, so I put that on in the record store and discovered another dimension of metal. Candlemass’ ‘Epicus Doomicus Metallicus’ had only long songs, so I think I bought that without even listening, and it was one of my best buys ever – an eternal inspiration for my entire career..”

 

“For us it has become a bit logical, hard to explain, but you get to build up for a different kind of listening,” says Nocturno Culto. “A three-minute song is nothing we think of at the moment. We like it this way. For now.”

1. His Master’s Voice [07:17]
2. Hate Cloak [09:16]
3. Wake of the Awakened [08:24]
4. Voyage to a North Pole Adrift [09:24]
5. Lost Arcane City of Uppakra [07:02]

 

Even a change of studio hasn’t really changed anything in Darkthrone’s DNA. Having recorded all albums since 2004 using their own Necrohell II studio – a portable 8-track recorder housed in an old bomb shelter, itself a replacement for the original Necrohell 4-track used for Transilvanian Hunger and Panzerfaust, until it became “too necro” and broke – for Eternal Hails the band went to Chaka Khan Studio in Oslo for the first time.

 

In a world changing too fast for anything to stick, Darkthrone are both able to stay fresh, but also reassuringly reliable. And no matter where they record, what they do or what gear the use to do it – Fenriz actually ended up using a drum kit belonging to Carmine Appice when he was in Rod Stewart’s band this time around – this, it seems, will never and can never change.

 

As Fenriz himself puts it, “No matter what happens we will still sound like us, it seems!”

This deluxe set marks the formative years of one of Norway’s finest & most celebrated metal exports, as well as highlighting the 30th anniversary of their ground-breaking debut opus Soulside Journey, this extensive vinyl and cassette boxset contains the full early works of the band, much of which sees a release for the first time, including restored material courtesy of Patrick Engel at Temple of Disharmony. From humble beginnings to revered gods of metal, Shadows of Iconoclasm unfolds the band’s early journey towards greatness.

 

The special cover artwork for this set is inspired by the early works of the band & comes courtesy of notable artist Zbigniew Bielak.

 

This box set has been compiled and curated with the band and features content from their personal archives – Fenriz comments “We only had a few months to write what would become ‘A Blaze in the Northern Sky’ and we had to blacken up a whole song from the ‘Goatlord’ session, and here and there on ‘A Blaze…’ you can hear a few riffs from ‘Goatlord’. Ironically I ended up listening way more to the ‘Goatlord’ album than I ever did with ‘A Blaze in the Northern Sky’. Maybe because ‘Goatlord’ feels super-real to me and I want to thank Patrick Engel for cleaning up the rehearsal sound without manipulating it much.”

 

He continues “The real sensation in this box is the live performance from Bootleg Stage Oslo 1990, soundboard sound with live performances of several of the tracks from our Goatlord album, I was so stoked when I discovered this (and no, I never had this on video myself so it was the first time I heard the audio now after over 30 years and it made me very happy. It was a non-alcoholic stage but we were pretty wasted too!)”

 

SHADOWS OF ICONOCLASM is OUT NOW.

‘Shadows Of Iconoclasm’ contains: 

• 6 LPs plus 7” featuring:
– A newly remastered 30th anniversary edition of 1991’s Soulside Journey
– The original Goatlord instrumental rehearsal/album – specially transferred & restored from Fenriz’ original tape
– Live in Esbjerg, Denmark 1990 – first time on vinyl
– Live in Oslo November 1990 –a new digital transfer from the original master tapes from the Bootleg TV archive. Previously unreleased.
– Live in Riihimaki & Lahti, Finland. Darkthrone’s 1991 – first time on vinyl format
– Tracks from Oslo 1989 Bootleg TV appearance on 7” vinyl, including the Celtic Frost cover, ‘Visual Aggression’

 

• The 4 cult Darkthrone demos presented on cassette tape with their original art & layout

 

• DVD featuring a new digital transfer of Darkthrone’s November 1990 Oslo appearance from original master tapes, as well as their Finnish tour date appearances

 

• plus bonus footage from Oslo 1989 & a previously unseen track from their September 1990 Oslo gig

 

• 60 page book with a large collection of band photos, plus text covering the early years of the band as featured in the ‘Black Death & Beyond’ book, including additional text for this release, plus bonus chapters compiled from rare Darkthrone titles

 

• Band promotional photo print replica

 

• Soulside Journey art print

 

• Posters of the original Darkthrone logo image drawing & gig poster promoting their Oslo live appearance from September 1990