Well, this is certainly different to what we now know as Satyricon. Dark Medieval Times is their first album from 1993. The sound hits as fairly standard atmospheric black metal, not too dissimilar to the first album. Whilst not partiuclarly original this is an enjoyable release and has some great songs on it. As the title suggests there is definitley some medieval sounding stuff on here and when you listent to this stuff in the dark it really does take you away. The album cover also features some cool black and white pencil art which was the style at the time.
The guitars sound like buzzsaws, where the listener gets more ‘textures’ than actual notes in some parts and shifts more to more standard style riffing in other parts. Some great guitar melodies on this as well once the ears settle into the rawness of it all. Not sure if this is intended or more to do with the recording but the lo-fi guitars really add to this. The drums are nice and loud and drummer frost already has a great extreme metal drumming technique but also a great groove on this release. There are lots of keyboards to add to the texture of this recording.
The song, Dark Medieval Times has some great riffs and really cool clean guitar interlude, Even some woodwind instrumentalism really contributing to that medieval feel I mentioned earlier. Thematically the band seem to be going on about the usual Norwegian stuff, like forests etc… so nothing too unusual there, it fits in well with the music I think. The longer you listen to this the more you can’t help but get lost in the world these guys are trying to create.
Clearly this is the first album from a band that would go onto great things in the future, and some of the songs (and recording techniques) are a little embryonic but that only adds to its charm. It’s basically raw black metal but the Medieval themes give it another dimension to seperate it from its peers at the time.
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