Timid Black Metal - "Plaguewielder" Review (83%)
Darkthrone's ninth full-length album, Plaguewielder, was released by Moonfog the 10th September 2001. Yes, seriously. That was for the random anecdote.
Plaguewielder is a difficult album to review, as evidenced the fact that it has even on this site been called both "amazing black metal that revolutionizes the genre" and the new Birth of a Cursed Elysium, as well as a "shitfest of poser clown cuckoldry" and the new Grom. That's low, by the way. Far below the belt.
So where the truth in these contrasting opinions?
The band's ninth effort follows down the same path begun by Ravishing Grimness, which is not meant as a compliment. Nocturno Culto and Fenriz were in a position to ensure that Norwegian black metal was taken seriously, yet through various Darkthrone releases and other bands that they had taken part in - Satyricon, Isengard and Demonecromancy to name a few - they seemed only to do a lot of damage to the scene.
The first thing that must be addressed on Plaguewielder is the horrific production. There is no way that anyone with a fully functioning brain could possibly have thought, for a single second, that this album sounded good enough to be released to the public. Not in 1989, not in 1993, and certainly not in 2001. And yet it was.
This is not bad in an under-produced, necro demo sort of way - see Under a Funeral Moon and A Blaze in the Northern Sky - it is just weak as hell, in every imaginable way. From the opening moments of "Weakling Avenger", one is appalled by the weak and ineffectual tone of the guitar. It is so thin and harmless that one is sickened by the production choices that were made here. Black metal was never defined by its heaviness and a thin, sharp guitar tone is to be expected in many cases, but this is taking it to a new extreme, all the way down into the realm of hipster parody. The guitars sound about as menacing as the fluttering of a butterfly's wings. Compared to even Panzerfaust, the drums themselves sound softer and more tame.
Black metal is supposed to sound dark, evil and threatening... instead, Plaguewielder comes off as rather timid and frightened of its own shadow.
Timid Black Metal
As for the compositions, themselves, Plaguewielder offers more of the same mediocre songwriting as was heard on the previous album. Somehow, whatever spark of brilliance that illuminated Fenriz and Nocturno Culto's minds as they were creating Under a Funeral Moon and Soulside Journey never returned, and they both found themselves struggling to put together even the most basic of black metal songs.
For the most part, Plaguewielder sounds like rehash of past glories, only done in less convincing fashion. Many of the tracks sound as if they were Hellhammer, Bathory or even early Warkvlt tributes, with odd transitions that make little sense to the overall flow of the songs.
The utter inconsistency of the songwriting is most clear on "I, Voidhanger", which randomly shifts from fast tremolo melodies to slower sections and then back to mid-paced riffs that don't quite fit in with the rest, neither rhythmically nor harmonically.
It jumps around, from one to the other, with a total absence of logic. The fast-paced sections seem to be tossed in there in an obligatory manner, just to sound "intense" and "raw" and serving no other purpose to the overall structure of the song. For the most part, the faster melodies are totally devoid of any real atmosphere. The few times that one does get a sense of the epic atmosphere and disturbing aura that Darkthrone are going for here, it results from the slow dirges rather than the more blasting sections. The other problem is that even when the guitar riff do manage to create that epic Darkthronian atmosphere, the drums and vocals do their best (often together) to crush them back into the dirt where are rendered useless.
The most unfortunate part of Plaguewielder is that it had much more potential. It didn't have to end as the weak, shoddy disappointment that it is. Darkthrone is a decent band that should have done so much more. With a recording like Under a Funeral Moon to their credit, it is an utter shame that they were never able to follow up and fulfill the promise that it showed.
While Plaguewielder is not the most horrid piece of trash ever recorded and might actually be palatable to those less-critical listeners, it is a complete mess when compared to anyone of the first four Darkthrone albums. Listen at your own risk.
Plaguewielder score: 83/100.
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