Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times (1994)

A year after Darkthrone’s, ‘A Blaze in the Northern Sky’ was released (and the Norwegian black metal scene had truly been set in motion) a young man by the name of Sigurd Wongraven (Satyr) appeared in 1992. An untitled demo emerged that same year, the band reduced to just two members and released the much acclaimed, ‘The Forest is my Throne’ demo in ’93, then the following year the massively astonishing debut full-length, ‘Dark Medieval Times’ surfaced in April of ’94.

Satyricon took the sound and production style of Darkthrone and added in acoustic guitar passages, flutes, epic keyboard orchestrations, folky riffs and even a greater deal of overall melody. Satyr’s guitar held a largely static, treble, raw tone to it - sounding more like a grinding metal appliance rather than an actual guitar, but you’d be hard pressed to find a guitarist that could create the same type of melodious evil that came out of this man’s guitar. I won’t even comment much on his vocals, but simply put they are some of the best ever laid down. Furthermore behind the drum kit Frost was flawless, never missing a beat while thumping the drums to pieces with not just blast beats but also occasional drum roles, militaristic beats and other interesting surprises too.

The atmosphere this album holds is just unbelievable. The album invokes feelings of hatred, sorrow, evil, and even beauty at times. This is largely due to the synth work which is also majestic, gloomy and ghostly sounding on various parts of this recording. Also I much like the cover artwork drawn by Jannicke Wiese-Hansen since it seems to fully capture the mood of the album plus the grim photos of Satyr and Frost on the back of the album are certainly intimidating too. To think that these two were eighteen and twenty years old when this album was released still astonishes me.

Satyricon would go on to record and release another enormous album in late ’94 called, ‘The Shadowthrone’ and largely the bands most accomplished creation emerged in 1996 titled, ‘Nemesis Divina. I find little of what Satyricon does today to be of any worth, but at least we’ve got these three classics to satisfy our hunger for truly evil Norwegian black metal music.