Darkthrone — Under a Funeral Moon( 2025 reissue)
Appearing in 1993, a year after A Blaze In The Northern Sky, Under A Funereal Moon saw Darkthrone clarify and crudely distil their black metal sound. The eight-track album found the band iron out all the death metal elements from their last album, amp up the distortion, and let the blackened ice-coldness rush in. Here from Peaceville Records is the next in the series of two-disc CD reissues of classic BM albums from the band, with the first disc taking in the original album, and the second disc features a full-length commentary track from drummer/songwriter Feriz.
Like the other reissues in this series, the two CDs come presented in a slimline jewel case, with just a fold-out inlay. Featuring original necro/ monochrome cover artwork of a corpse painted figure standing in a pitch black forest, holding a pole with a skull on top. Inside are lyrics repeated in a rather small fount.
The album goes from “The Dance Of Eternal Shadows” which shifts from grim slugging riff and bonding ‘n’ hissing drums, onto clamouring speeding grimness, with a great ritual bounding percussion meets doomed breakdown- that very much nods towards Celtic Frost. Through to the title track, which moves between galloping ‘n’ crashing drums and churning cold chainsaw guitars, to bounding mid-paced riffing.
With the album playing out with one of its effective moments, “Crossing The Traigle Of Fire”, which moves from frozen gallops with baying vocals, punked blacked metal churns, and a great end that features a dark tolling tone, which I always thought was a piano key- but we find out from the commentary disc, that it was actually part of Feriz’s kit.
So moving onto the second disc, and once again Feriz is in fine chatty & interesting form- so much so that it made me like enjoy the album, which in the past I ranked as my least favourite of Darkthrone’s Unholy Trinity.
He begins by talking about the album's general sound- the ice cold tone, wasp-like guitars, fuzzed up bass, and the high-hat & the floor tom being most present of the drum kit. We find out the engineer went all out on the band's wishes, doubling them. He talks about the deliberate eight-second break between each song to make each more impactful. He says he considers this to be their only total BM release, he points out riffs that were inspired by Mayhem circa Live In Leipzig- which they got to hear before its release. We find that each song on the album was written by just one member.
On the title track, the first track he says he wrote for the band's BM period, he talks about the first riff being a mix of Hellhammer and Bathory. He discusses how the song has no real refrain, and tries to recall who did the solo on this track. And on "Inn i de dype skogers favn” he talks about this track as the crowning achievement of the band's BM period. He points out that one of the riffs is a blend of Hellhammer & Motorhead, and pre-dated the black ‘n' roll sound.
In finishing, if you a interested in BM history in general, this reissue is a must. And as I said earlier, it’s made me reevaluate my opinion on the album as a whole, which is praise indeed.