Darkthrone - Hate Them
Moonfog Productions
Raw Black Metal
7 songs (38'47)
Release year: 2003
Moonfog Productions
Reviewed by Crims
Album of the month

The masters of true Norwegian Black Metal are back again with Hate Them, the follow up to 2001’s Plague Wielder. As most Darkthrone fans would expect, very little has changed. The raw production is still there, however, the drums seemed a little beefed up, and the savagely evil vocals are still present. Of course, the now classic traditional Black Metal riffing is found throughout as well. Despite always containing similar aspects in their music, Darkthrone still manage to release material that sounds just slightly different from CD to CD, and Hate Them is no different. Compared to their earlier work there are not as many blast beats and while many sections are still intensely brutal, atmosphere is the dominating theme. The result is an extremely enjoyable Darkthrone release that ranks up there with their best.

Through the 7 tracks on Hate Them Darkthrone throw us a lot of change ups. Unlike some past releases which were- purposely mind you- monotonous in the sense that they repeated the same riff for extended periods of time, each song moves from atmospheric, almost Doom Metal sounding passages to fast head banging sections. Head banging probably isn’t the first action that comes to mind when listening to Darkthrone but since they’ve opted for fast Thrash-like snare and bass patterns over the more intense riffs, I couldn’t help but head bang along. Of course, double bass makes an appearance occasionally as well (Striving For A Piece Of Lucifer makes great use of it) and there are still a good number of blasts. The guitar sound is a little fuller, perhaps being more similar to Mayhem’s Deathcrush than Transylvanian Hunger. In fact, the amazing intro to Mayhem’s Necrolust was brought to mind during some of the slower build-ups, which is a good thing in my books. The actual riffs are still classic Darkthrone though and Fucked Up And Ready To Die has some of the darkest riffs I’ve heard from Darkthrone yet.

Contrary to popular belief, Darkthrone lyrics aren’t really filled with anti-Christian blasphemy, at least not lately. Hate Them is no exception as there are only a couple of passing notions to Satanism as most lyrics deal with death and inner demons. Meanwhile the vocals have not changed a bit and Nocturno Culto still spews forth the essence of the Black Metal vocal style.

Admittedly, Darkthrone is not for everyone. The raw production certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and some might find the songs too simple, although that’s part of the appeal in my opinion, because the simple song arrangements give off a complicated atmosphere. If you’re already a fan of Darkthrone I see no reason why you shouldn’t like this and if you’re new to Darkthrone this isn’t a bad CD to start with either, but as I’ve stated, it is definitely not for everyone, so you’ve been warned. As for me, being a big fan of Darkthrone, I must say Hate Them surpassed my expectations and it is a worthy successor to the past classics that Darkthrone has unleashed.

Killing Songs :
Rust, Fucked Up And Ready To Die, Divided We Stand, Striving For A Piece Of Lucifer, In Honour Of Thy Name
Crims quoted 92 / 100
Other albums by Darkthrone that we have reviewed:
Darkthrone - Astral Fortress reviewed by Goat and quoted 70 / 100
Darkthrone - Eternal Hails...... reviewed by Goat and quoted 90 / 100
Darkthrone - Old Star reviewed by Goat and quoted 80 / 100
Darkthrone - Arctic Thunder reviewed by Goat and quoted 70 / 100
Darkthrone - The Underground Resistance reviewed by Goat and quoted 75 / 100
To see all 21 reviews click here
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