Norwegian black metal pioneers
Darkthrone
maintain their distinctively raw intensity on their 20th studio album,
It Beckons Us All
. Comprised of just seven songs, the album sticks largely to slow-burning, long-churning chugs of midtempo or slower material. The band's signature lower-fidelity drum sound is in the forefront on opening track "Howling Primitive Colonies," and tracks like "Black Dawn Affiliation" drape fuzzy guitar tones with long sheets of dark ambient synth tones. The album's final, lengthy track, "The Lone Pines of the Lost Planet," stretches on for over ten minutes, tapping into a demo-like sound quality and rough-hewn immediacy reminiscent of the band's earliest groundbreaking black metal statements. ~ Fred Thomas