Though this is not Darkthrone's best album, it is probably their most underrated album. The music is awesome, eerie, and is a good companion to the 3 classic DT albums. With respects to the vocals, I can see where the previous reviewer is coming from, but I don't feel as though it is as significant a departure as that reviewer suggests.
Satan alone knows why, but on this particular album, Darkthrone's Nocturno Culto decided "Man, fuck doing GOOD black metal vocals--I'm gonna sound like a total asswipe this time instead!" And that's why I've never been able to get into Panzerfaust, despite the quality of the music. You know how it sounds when your dumbass friends or coworkers who don't like black or death metal try to imitate the vocals to piss you off? And they do some weak-sounding bullshit and then laugh as if they've somehow embarrassed the bands you like instead of themselves? That's what this sounds like. Seriously, what the fuck?!
I was warned. "Watch out for the death metal," said my muso friends when I told them I was off to the wilds of Norway for a rock festival - as if I could somehow be mortally wounded by shards of satanic shrapnel. But when I arrived in Bergen, on the west coast of the country, supposedly the wettest place in Europe with over 200 days of rain each year, the sun shone brightly and… more »
