Soulside Journey - Darkthrone

Advantages: Good if you like deathmetal, i suppose...
Disadvantages: My god, its boring hearing 11 tracks of trempicking

Argh. I bought this album on a whim, and fairly regret it. I'd heard some death metal such as slayer and thought this might be of similar vein - how wrong I was. This entire cd is pretty much just growling and trempicking, which i find incredibly boring. The cd opens with some trempicking interspaced with some samey groove sections, and this sets the feel of the album. Listening to it now, I can't say the vocals are awesome, as I can't really hear ...
...death metal" sound to it, which consists of lots of trempicking (fast picking), atonal solos and screaming. At least in its favour this album isn't tremendously heavy - it is still fairly listen able, and im sure if your really into death metal they're probably passable. I just find them so monotonous, the trempicking is yawn worthy, and the attempts at a groove are nothing in comparison to bands like slayer and Pantera. They simply do not make ... Read review

Advantages: good production and sound, catchy songs
Disadvantages: different from the older albums

...This release was something totally unexpected (except the fact that the full-length album was preceded by a EP "Too Old Too Cold" which gave people a decent surprise) and came like rain from clear sky. With this release Darkthrone have evolved from good old norwegian black metal to motörheadesque and quite heavily punk influenced thrash metal band and I absolutely adore it. Actually the change is rather small, it could be considered big only because Darkthrone was for quite a long time a black metal band, but considering that Darkthrone started as a death metal band (their first album is basically a death metal release) turning into black metal after their first release "Soulside Journey". So it's not that big surprise. Compared to their previous full-length "Sardonic Wrath" this release is much more listener... Read review

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