As I keep saying, there is loads of Black this year and here comes a very fine effort from the absolute godfathers of the scene. 1992’s “A Blaze in the Northern Sky” is the quintessential Norwegian black metal. Everything else released since then that claims to be old skool Nordic black is simply trying to emulate this record. But Darkthrone were smart, they didn’t try to better their masterpiece, instead moved into crust punk, speed punk and basically sounding like an angrier Motorhead. In the last few years, they have drift back to Black with the added ingredient of trying to sound like seventies Judas Priest. This is a metal album for metal purist. It is a love letter to the new wave of British Heavy Metal (that gave us Maiden, Venom and Saxon) and it is an unashamed recycle of riffs that we have known and loved. There is absolutely nothing new here but it is still really really enjoyable.