With their 21st album Pre-Historic Metal, Darkthrone return to their recent sound. By recent, it is the sound of the past that continues to inspire main man Fenriz all these years later.
Album opener “They Found One Of My Graves” is a slow starter that has a solid vibe of old school heavy metal without the need for the highest octane, giving more room for the rough edged and throaty vocals to spread out. The title track has a bit more black metal to it its attack beyond the intentionally lo-fi production present here. The guitars fly at you from all over the place while the primitive drumming pounds through your skull.
“Deeply Rooted” brings about a doomier sensibility with its very deliberate pacing which eventually gives way to a speedier and galloping section of riffs while the vocals take on a more operatic tone. But it’s one well within their vocal range, before a shouted “really” brings the song to a close.
“The Dry Wells of Hell” gives off a chugging riff at the beginning which sounds for a second like the beginning to Mercyful Fate’s “A Dangerous Meeting,” even featuring a falsetto to bring that vision into clearer focus. For all the positives on this track it tends to overstay its welcome, much like the earlier song “Siberian Thaw,” as there is isn’t usually much to differentiate most of these songs from one another. Also, being over six minutes tends to hurt their replay ability when they could use to be half as long.
The album then features an instrumental in “So I Marched To The Sunken Empire” to break things up before “Eat Eat Eat Your Pride” starts. The latter track is a bit faster from the jump, yet is still constructed in a similar fashion to too many of the tracks. An air of sameness has not only infected this album but has become a bit too tiresome on the discography as a whole.
Ever since Eternal Hails, Darkthrone have seemingly released the same album over and again, which I guess is fine. Fenriz and Nocturno Culto love making music, but to expect anything other than a retread at this point feels foolhardy. While I understand that this dynamic duo do not take themselves that seriously, the watering down of a legendary discography isn’t nothing.
Pre-Historic Metal will best be remembered in a few years when they inevitably release the same album again and the listener says “oh yeah, they did put an album out a few years ago,” because that is what this band has become at this point. In an era where so many bands are being creative with their music, Darkthrone are happily spinning their wheels making music for themselves, not looking for anything more than that.
(released May 9, 2026 on Peaceville Records)
Heavy Music HQ Rating:
Listen To Darkthrone – “They Found One Of My Graves”
