Darkthrone - Circle The Wagons (2010)

They've done it again.

With their 15th album Darkthrone keep changing their sound ('let there be more heavy metal', they must have said) and bringing once again one of the best records of the year. Furthermore, they are beating themselves in the sense that Circle The Wagons is probably more interesting than half of their previous works. If that wasn't enough to remind you of Iron Maiden (who also released their 15th album this year and are still teaching the world how to do a classic heavy metal album) they also have maintained their mascot - again by Dennis Dread - which makes for yet another awesome cover.

Sound wise, they kick things off with something that probably will shock any black metal purists that still follow them (as if they haven't been scared away by their previous punk/heavy/speed whatever influenced records): there are clean vocals! Ok, there was something remotely clean in The Winds They Call The Dungeon Shaker, but nothing to this extent. And I for one, am quite glad for this addition. It's not like they are great singers or anything like that or that the clean parts will take away for the raw feeling they still have after more then 20 years, it just gives an epic twist to the music and also for that, Those Treasures Will Never Befall You has to go down as one of the best openers in their history (or at least the latest stages of it if you feel it is a blasphemy of some sort to compare this stuff to Transilvanian Hunger, which I think is not).

So, besides adding clean vocals here and there what did they do on Circle The Wagons? They continued to go down the same road they took in The Cult Is Alive and persisted in F.O.A.D. and Dark Thrones and Black Flags, maybe with a little more of classic heavy metal (not only on the vocal side), something that they had actually hinted for in plenty of interviews when previewing this record and therefore not much of a surprise. Regarding their riff-producing abilities, they remain intact and seem to get refined with age. Just listen to the track Eyes Burst at Dawn - that has it all (and to think that in the last records I used to prefer Fenriz's tracks to Culto's, this one comes as a good surprise). Do they still complain about modern metal? Switch to the Fenriz-is-ranting opus of the day - I am the Graves of the 80's - somewhere between grim and epic with "I am the graves of the 80s / I am the risen dead / destroy their modern metal / and bang your fucking head / Uh!" as a chorus. You also have the short and sweet title track that will make you sing along plenty of times.

I still maintain the stand I made when reviewing their previous records - this fuck off and die attitude fits their career from beginning to the end. The same reasons that made them idols in the black metal movement still apply today and I will add more - in that sense, they probably have the most consistent, albeit not repetitive in the slightest bit, career of that whole bunch of early Norwegian black metal bands.
In their case, I think the comparison with another band would have to be with Iron Maiden (keeping of course in mind the monstrous difference between the audience range and importance of one and the other): after such a long time either one or the other is one of the most interesting metal bands around and every time they decide to put out something new, odds are it will be great stuff once again.

Circle The Wagons is one of those cases. Grab a beer and enjoy!