Following the announcement that the new Darkthrone album, Eternal Hails, is to be released on June 25, the band have premiered “Hate Cloak” – the first and only track to be revealed ahead of the album’s release.
The 9 min 17 seconds, Fenriz penned, hallowed epic “Hate Cloak” is steeped in the majestic thunder of vintage heavy doom metal. Fenriz comments “Hate Cloak is certainly the slowest song on the album, there are plenty of “fast” parts on Ted’s songs, middle tempos and slow as well. The whole point of us having long songs is variation in tempos/pace, hence the epicness”
The Norwegian black metal legends, show that within five tracks and 45 minutes on their 19th album, Eternal Hails, they remain defiantly and eternally Darkthrone.
Since forming in 1986 as Black Death in Kolboton, Norway, Darkthrone have been masters of their art. Dropping the death metal of 1991’s Soulside Journey debut album in favour of a more primitive, black metal sound on the following year’s A Blaze In The Northern Sky, they helped define black metal in the ’90s through albums like 1993’s Under A Funeral Moon and its follow-up Transilvanian Hunger. Truly, though, Darkthrone remain unique, even in their own canon.
On Eternal Hails, the longer, doomier songs reflect drummer Fenriz’s love of doom, taking their time to make their point. For Fenriz, what he and co-conspirator Nocturno Culto have concocted stretches back even further than discovering black metal, to the sounds of the ’70s and the more freewheeling sounds of bands playing with more expansive themes. This didn’t just make the songs longer, it made them an entirely different beast from the ground up.
