63. Darkthrone - "Astral Fortress"

We seem to have reached a self-generating stream of veteran acts producing surprisingly decent records. Darkthrone are the Black Sabbath of black metal. Numerous other acts have gone on to be more well-known and produce frankly better material than they have, but they are the innovators, they are black metal’s year zero. Nearly 40 years later they are still prolifically making records (but only records, they played live once, did like it, and have never bothered a stage again) and there probably isn’t a sub-genre of extreme metal that they have not bothered. Doom, they’ve done it. Death metal, they’ve done it. Crust Punk, they’ve done it. Judas Priest on steroids, they’ve done it. Authentic NWOBHM, they’ve done it. 

Recently they have had fun imagining what a Black metal album by Motorhead would have sounded like and “Astral Fortress” very much stays within that fertile playground. The perception (usually right) is that like metal is humourless and completely self-absorbed. Darkthrone buck against that trend as this is essentially still two mates having a laugh making music that they love. They may now be in their 50s and they may have a legacy that they will never live down, but the most enjoyable thing about this album is the fact that you can tell they are having a whale of a time making it.