Search - DarkThrone :: Transylvanian Hunger

Dark purity

Chet Fakir | DC | 07/21/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is Black Metal distilled to its grimmest, darkest purity. The guitars meld together in a slowly shifting black harmonic wall. The riffs are repetitive but I found them mesmerising. The drums have been stripped down to their basics, no fills for Fenriz, and act as a solid blasting foundation for the guitars. The vocals are placed perfectly within the music and are savage. That most of the songs are sung in Norwegian adds to the evil angry experience.



The lyrics written by Fenriz and Count Grishnakh - Varg Vikernes of Burzum, are darkly poetic and evocative, capturing in words an essence of horror that few other bands ever achieve. At least the two songs in English do. This is dark, evil music, to call it grim doesn't begin to describe the emotion Darkthrone achieved on Transylvanian Hunger.



I didn't buy this album for some time as I heard of its primitive production, my bad.

Yes the production is intentionaly "bad", but the lo-fi sound really does help to create a palpably dark, cold atmosphere. It only adds to the cold wall-of-noise aesthetic Darkthrone were attempting. "Blaze In The Northern Sky" and "Under A Funeral Moon" are both excellent albums but sound "spiky" to me: there are things that stand up out of the mix, be it a guitar or Fenriz's highhat. On "Transylvanian Hunger" the sound has been honed/refined into a blasting wall. It just sounds more unified than Darkthrone's previous two black metal releases, (not better, just different)



"Transylvanian Hunger" is the music of ice, stone and anger, an innovative album from some of the true innovators in black metal. Certainly one of Darkthrones best and the quintesence of the Norwegian underground black metal sound. When I first got it I played it twice through in a row, at work no less. Listen to it loud in headphones at night, it will send chills down your spine."

The back excerpt says it all... TRUE NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL..

Lord Occulta | 10/22/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Dude...you guys don't know black metal...there are so many bad reviews about this album that it makes me sick to my stomach! DarkThrone is one of the pioneers of norwegian black metal along with MayheM (with Oystein and Per Yngve. DarkThrone gave up the whole trendy death metal scene to become the UNHOLY darkthrone and ever sense then, they NEVER made a bad album. The production of this album added to the dark, grim atmosphere of the album, and i do not regret buying it at all. The album is sung entirely in Norwegian which kicks soooo much @$$!! I think all music should be sung in its native language. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, Polish whatever...BLACK METAL IST KREIG!!!"

Well, it's okay...

Matt Pullen | USA, Maryland | 09/01/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I do not believe this to be as epic, much less good as most tend to make it out to be. This album is simply good, nothing more. Although I do take much more pleasure in listening to this over the tunes of the likes of other kvlter and tr00er bands, this is over worshipped. This is another black metal band which practices minimalist art, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I happen to like minimalism in many cases, but in this instance you may as well take the first sixty seconds of each song and then replay it for another two or three minutes; you'll get the same effect as listening to an entire song.



Minimalism is not bad. Lack of variety is what erodes the greatness of this album and only forces me to ponder about how good this could have been. The band had the right idea; they just needed to expand upon it a little bit with more riffs. On the level of skill, I'm sure any guitar newbie could learn any of these songs, they aren't hard to play. What makes this attractive more or less is the sheer nature of this recording.



The blurry production gives Darkthrone a bit of an advantage for their quest to sound as if they recorded Transilvanian Hunger while camping out in a forest on a snowy winter night. Actually, this sounds more like it was recorded in a studio, then that recording was recorded on a tape player if you want to be realistic. The vocals sound like a growl in vein of a rasp; Nocturno Culto somewhat resembles the late Mayhem singer, Dead, during songs like "Slottet I Det Fjerne" with his "ARRRGH!" Like the guitar playing, the drumming is pretty simple; Fenriz mainly just uses mid-paced blast beats. However, I happen to have a soft spot for the drumming here because of the way the non stop pounding adds a nice dosage of chaos to this album.



Even though the guitars are just fast strumming, there is a lot of melody within the simplicity. Yeah, the sound is cold and grim, but even that isn't an excuse to cut corners like this. The guys in Darkthrone have a knick for creating good melody with little effort involved, but I know they could have done more with less recursive riffs to make this album really scream `epic.' This is worth owning if you're a fan of black metal, without a doubt, but I wouldn't call this essential by any means. If you hate repetitive minimalism then you may want to download this before you consider purchasing it."