Darkthrone – Goatlord Original (2023)

April 21, 2023

I can’t help but be captivated by the music that Darkthrone play on Goatlord. It is a true “what might have been moment” where the whole course of music could have been changed. Can you imagine a world without Darkthrone as a black metal band? Think, what would the implications of this be? Black metal would still exist obviously, but it would look different, that’s for sure.

I never really got into Goatlord as a rabid teenage Darkthrone fan because of how dreadful the vocals were, so it is really, really cool to be able to play through the original demo tapes, once again lovingly restored from Fenriz’s original copies, this time by Patrick W. Engel. Gone are the hammy vocals added later – these are just pure instrumental tracks from a young band that are writing their sophomore album.

The whole band are incredible, but Fenriz’s drumming is fantastic here. He is, arguably, wasted in the true/pure black version of Darkthrone, and it would be cool if he played in some other bands sometime (other than Isengard etc).

I love time capsules like this. They are always worth opening.