666 Metal Extremo: Darkthrone - Return To Ultima Thule [bootleg] (2001)

domingo, 13 de diciembre de 2020

Darkthrone - Return To Ultima Thule [bootleg] (2001)

In the beginning were a death metal band under the name Black Death formed in late 1986, whose members were Gylve Nagell (Fenriz), Ivar Enger (Zephyrous) and Anders Risberget. The band changed their name to Darkthrone in late 1987 and were joined by Dag Nilsen. In the spring of 1988, Ted Skjellum (Nocturno Culto) joined the band on guitar and vocals. Based in the Oslo suburb of Kolbotn, the band recorded four demo tapes during 1988 and 1989, (Land of Frost, A New Dimension, Thulcandra, and Cromlech) and was eventually signed by England's Peaceville Records, for whom they recorded their 1991 debut, Soulside Journey. This contained technical death metal in a similar vein to then dominant Swedish groups like Entombed, Edge of Sanity, and Tiamat, and was severely at odds with the small, but dedicated heavy metal community coalescing around Oslo's infamous Helvete record store. It was at this nondescript location, operated by Mayhem guitarist Euronymous, that the seeds were sowed for the so-called "Inner Circle" of Norwegian black metal, whose subsequent activities (involving numerous counts of arson, suicide, and the murder of Euronymous himself at the hands of Burzum's Varg Vikernes) inadvertently drew more international attention than the inaccessible music itself ever could. It was also at Helvete that the members of Darkthrone fell under black metal's irresistibly evil spell, and, no doubt influenced by Mayhem's primal racket, not to mention first generation black metal bands like England's Venom, Switzerland's Hellhammer, Sweden's Bathory, and Brazil's Sarcófago, they began applying corpse makeup and turned their backs on death metal.

In August 1991, they recorded their second album, which was released at the beginning of 1992 and titled A Blaze in the Northern Sky. The album contained Darkthrone's first black metal recordings, and Peaceville Records was originally skeptical about releasing it due to Darkthrone's extreme diversion from their original death metal style. After the album was recorded, bassist Dag Nilsen left the band, as he didn't want to play black metal, and is merely credited as "session bass" with no picture on the album.