DARKTHRONE Total Death CD (1996)

By 1996, Darkthrone had already cemented themselves as black metal royalty, and Total Death was their goodbye to the world giving a damn what anyone thought. Fenriz handed writing duties entirely to his bandmates, and what came back was grimmer, slower, and more deliberately ugly than anything they'd done before.

This is the record that divided opinion, which in Darkthrone's universe basically means they nailed it. It sits in that strange, underappreciated corner of their catalogue where punk nihilism and Norwegian black metal orthodoxy start bleeding into each other, a direction that would fully surface years later on The Cult Is Alive. If you've only got Transilvanian Hunger on your shelf, this is the gap that's been quietly bothering you. Raw production, no apologies, total conviction.

CD. Full length album. Released 1996 via Peaceville Records. Country of origin: Norway. Genre: Black Metal.

Fans of: Burzum, Mayhem, Celtic Frost, Forgotten Woods