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DARKTHRONE
Astral Fortress

Peaceville (2022)
Rating: 8/10

We’ve certainly been here before as cult members Ted “Nocturno Culto” Skejellum and Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell drag us once again into their doom-laden depths of icy nostalgia, as evidenced by the Panzerfaust (1995) reference on the tongue-in-cheek cover.

It’s a shame, of course, that the gruesome twosome does like to resort to elements of humour and throwback metal dabbling, with Hellhammer into Celtic Frost and then through Manilla Road, but it is all stuffy, gloomy yet often so wondrously riff-laden from the doomy dirge of the scowling opener ‘Caravan Of Broken Ghosts’. The faster passages rattle the cage of mid-80s Euro metal as the Fenriz bashes his way through a multitude of trash cans to create that exquisite snare that ambles furiously and rust-coated alongside the speed metal juggernaut.

In a sense Astral Fortress is predictable, but such are its lunging tentacles of horror that one can’t help but be dragged down into the pit of laborious murk pools as gloomed riff after gloomed riff cascades like black, freezing water. However, where we truly marvel at the duos impeccable craftsmanship is the riff and simplistic plod of ‘Impeccable Caverns Of Satan’, which is the most infectiously joyous track on offer with its doom-laden opening that also embraces a creative, snaking aesthetic to pull us into its lair.

Sure, Tom G. Warrior is channelled time and time again with those smirking growls, and yes, it does just prompt me to throw on those early Celtic Frost albums while thumbing through the classic Speed Kills compilations, but it’s also a Darkthrone trademark, in spite of the die-hard fans craving – for some unknown reason – the black metal era.

Darkthrone still brings a black metal aesthetic, but since the grim wastes of Panzerfaust they’ve toiled headlong into these fat rolling hills of riff perversion whereby tracks – albeit at times overlong – squirm and wind into the ears like grim parasites.

‘Stalagmite Necklace’ lumbers in ominous fashion to the stark taps of Fenriz’s beat before the enigmatic swirls of the epic and grandiose ‘The Sea Beneath The Seas Of The Sea’ unravel. There are elements of the Lovecraftian when it comes to Darkthrone’s obscure, esoteric vapours; bizarrely cosmic and barren conjurations as the pace steadily quickens to what is still a crusty lope.

The sinister grooves of ‘Kevorkian Times’ continue to fashion as great marbled halls constructed of black ice before the now expected speedier chimes cause the vast corridors to crack with nostalgic aplomb. Meanwhile, ‘Kobolton, West Of The Vast Forests’ is mere soundtrack before the gnarly riffage of ‘Eon 2’ comes trudging like some fetid punk / crust mammoth, barging its way through snowy barricades and shaking off its matted coat to a pallid New Wave Of British Heavy Metal-styled hook. It’s arguably the most “metal” track on the opus, beaming with a traditional pride.

However, when the needle lifts you still understand that Astral Fortress, like its predecessor Eternal Hails…… (2021), is a venture into blackened doom metal plateaus – an often foreboding, otherworldly yet unembellished journey that thankfully knows when to break from its daring monotony.

Has Darkthrone become the AC/DC, or more so Motörhead of its chosen realm? Well, not quite, but what is clear is that they still deliver the goods and with a passion, albeit a penchant for reinventing the 70s and 80s steel.

Neil Arnold

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