Darkthrone have been at their rather unique brand of extreme metal now for close to twenty years. In that time the band has released one minor classic of the death metal genre with their debut Soulside Journey and two landmark releases in the black metal genre with Under A Funeral Moon and Transylvanian Hunger. Over the course of time though, the band has begun to move away from their early grim black metal sound to a more punk rock influenced black n roll approach that’s been received with mixed feelings from long time fans. 2006 saw the release of The Cult Is Alive which took the band closer than ever to a hybrid of Motorhead meets black metal.

F.O.A.D. or Fuck Off And Die is the band’s latest full length and continues along the path of the previous album. What the duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto are doing on this album for the large part is paying tribute to Venom’s classic Black Metal album. The songs sound quite similar to Venom and are largely simplistic and based around one decent riff or groove. Canadian Metal in fact sounds almost like the eponymous song of Venom’s album except that here we get Fenriz shouting “Canadian Metal” in the chorus instead of “Black Metal.” It’s a kickass song but one can’t help feeling that Darkthrone can do a bit better than just sound like a Venom clone. Unfortunately though, Venom worship seems to be the template around which this album is built.

The production is pretty much what you’d expect on a Darkthrone album. Maybe a little clearer than previous releases but overall not a lot has changed. Stand out tracks include the aforementioned Canadian Metal, The Church Of Real Metal which has a mid-tempo feel, the terrific title song and the bleak and cold Pervertor Of The 7 Gates. Fenriz occasionally uses a clean shouty punk voice on the album that works pretty well.

F.O.A.D. is a good album and the songs are all a lot of fun in the way that Venom or Motorhead is fun. Drink a few beers and headbang to F.O.A.D. but at the end of the day this is Darkthrone you’re talking about and I was expecting something a bit more from the duo than just an album’s worth of songs that sound like a Venom tribute.



Year Of Release - 2007
Label - Peaceville