Darkthrone - "Total Death", 1996

"Total Death" marked a strange time in Darkthrone's history; at that point, drummer Fenriz was progressively losing interest in the black metal scene, and his tastes were more into electro/techno and thrash metal, while singer/guitarist Nocturno Culto had moved to a remote Norwegian village for a while and lived a largely secluded life. For the band, the album was the last of a glorious run that took the 90s' underground by storm, from the dark death metal of the debut album "Soulside Journey" (still a masterpiece in its own right) to the genre-defining, Norwegian black metal instant classics "A Blaze in the Northern Sky", "Under a Funeral Moon", and "Transilvanian Hunger". 1995's "Panzerfaust" saw the band moving to Moonfog Productions (led by the band's ally Sigurd "Satyr" Wongraven of Satyricon) after a controversial split from Peaceville Records, and it showed the band mostly paying homage to Celtic Frost, to the point where the three more typically black metal tracks on there - "En vind av sorg", "Hans siste vinter", and "Quintessence" - almost felt like an afterthought (while excellent, make no mistake about it).

"Total Death" distills the Darkthrone's essence of the time perfectly, blending all of the band's flavors in a stark, grimly fascinating monument of aural misanthropy; both of the albums' cover artworks -whether you prefer the one with the blue-toned, desolate landscape or the alternative one, featuring a Norwegian mountain - embody the content of the record in the best of ways, being dark and austere, cold and solemn. Splitting the songwriting equally, Nocturno Culto and Fenriz clearly show where they were standing at that particular time; while Nocturno's material generally sounds like a perfected version of the band's trademark black metal style, Fenriz's one betrays his fascination with 80s thrash/black, from the ferocious groove of the Bathory-meets-Celtic Frost opener "Earth's Last Picture" to the old-school German-style thrash attack of "Blasphemer", and again the Celtic Frost/Hellhammer-infused "Black Victory of Death" and "The Serpents Harvest". Interestingly enough, Fenriz later disowned the faster, more typically black metal detours of "Earth's Last Picture"'s ending part and "The Serpents Harvest"'s middle section, which are among the absolute best riffs on the record and the sort of grim yet melodic material one would expect from 90s Darkthrone, the same that made songs like "Transilvanian Hunger" or "En vind av sorg" classics in the genre. 

Nocturno Culto doesn't seem to have a problem with those, though; in fact, his songs are a brilliant showcase of pure, unadulterated Norwegian black metal with merciless riffs and fierce melodies. "Blackwinged" bashes away relentlessly, but it offers a mid-tempo break that predates what we'll hear on "Ravishing Grimness" three years later; "Ravnajuv" is a masterclass in black metal, as are the triumphant "Gather for Attack on the Pearly Gates" and "Majestic Desolate Eye", the latter starting off in a quite atmospheric mid-tempo fashion before heading into total savagery. It remains among the most ferocious stuff Darkthrone ever put to tape. 

While Fenriz normally pens most of the lyrics, here he called forth many of his colleagues to contribute, with Garm (Ulver), Ihsahn (Emperor), Carl-Michael Eide (Aura Noir), and Satyr (Satyricon) all writing a song each, while the rest was penned by Nocturno Culto; there's a strong antichristian and satanic attitude throughout, and Nocturno seems particularly driven, although some of the material (such as "Blackwinged") comes off as a bit too juvenile. He makes up for it with his vocal performance, though, probably one of his best ever, showing a conviction and fierceness that remains unmatched to this day; it's pure black metal perfection.

The only real downside to "Total Death" is its production; it kind of seems like the band went for something akin to Bathory's "Under the Sign of the Black Mark" or "Blood Fire Death" here but missed the mark. It was recorded in an elusive studio called Ancient Spectre Ruins, probably a barn somewhere in the mountains of Norway, with the mysterious P.A. Roald at the helm and Nocturno Culto overseeing the proceedings. The studio has no other credits to this day except for "Dark Medieval Times" by Satyricon, and while that album was certainly far from having a perfect sound, it still retained some punch; on "Total Death" instead, everything is bathed in reverb, and Fenriz's drums are way too low in the mix, while the guitars feature a rather weak sound, particularly noticeable on the thrashier riffs ("Blasphemer" comes to mind). Overall, the album lacks some power - especially on the faster songs, where the drums tend to be buried in the mix - and it's a pity, since the songs are so good that they would have deserved a better treatment for sure. Given that Darkthrone always prided itself on achieving necro, demo-sounding productions, nobody expected this record to be any different, but strangely enough, even "Transilvanian Hunger" and "Panzerfaust" (both notoriously recorded on a 4-track) sounded overall better and more punchy. 

I think it's rather safe to assume that the album's production is one of the main reasons why the record didn't achieve the same cult status as the ones preceding it; still, in my opinion, it's the last true Darkthrone masterpiece and a must-have, and it's been steadily in my top 3 Darkthrone records since the day I listened to it in 1996. 1999's "Ravishing Grimness" will mark the first of a number of stylistic shifts for the duo, but whether you liked what the band did afterwards or not, whoever has listened to Darkthrone since the 90s will tell you that "Total Death" is the band's last real classic. It also pretty much marks the end of Norwegian black metal's golden age, together with other notable stuff such as Satyricon's "Nemesis Divina", Burzum's "Filosofem", Dimmu Borgir's "Stormblåst", Troll's "Drep de kristne", and Gorgoroth's "Antichrist".