Description

Early Peaceville records market and distributed by Music For Nations release. On this pressing we see Fenriz uses the alias “Hank Amarillo” as his credited name and the same for Nocturnal Culto using his real name “Ted Skjellum”.

Before Darkthrone, the influential second-wave Norwegian black metal band, there was a band called Darkthrone. THIS older Darkthrone championed a new approach to death metal mostly coming out of Sweden and England at the turn of the 1990s. Known mostly as “Swedish progressive” death metal, the new tendency was to combine the thrash-derived sounds of 1980s American death metal with motifs and playing techniques from doom metal and grindcore, resulting in a lower-tuned, more bass-intensive, sonically more aggressive, and more atmospheric approach to the genre. The first Darkthrone album is all these things in spades. Soulside Journey is good enough of a death metal album, that I would argue they’d still be remembered as a good and influential band even if they hadn’t decided to forge into black metal after this record. The recording quality fits the Swedish progressive style well. The guitars come from the extreme sides of the stereo, pouring right into your ears rather than sounding diffuse, and the equalizer definitely favors the heaviest and most carrying of the bass frequencies, giving the music the sensation of physically striking the listener. The drums, especially the snare hits, are prominent. The music itself is classic Swedish prog death metal- crushing, heavily downtuned power chords, near-atonal arpeggios, and pseudo-gothic doom metal melodies in a pace that varies from ponderous and lurking to a rapid gallop. It can get a little “samey” or meandering at times, but at its best it’s a good variation between ass-kicking death metal and brooding atmosphere. The guitar solos are fast, atonal, and full of urgency, and occasionally there’s even a little synthesizer for extra atmospheric oddness. The bass guitar is usually submerged behind the guitars, but gets a few good solo moments here and there. For me, what really carries this album is the drumming, though. As mentioned before, it’s given priority in the mix, with a very punchy and aggressive snare drum and emphatically played ride cymbals. There is a lot of the typical death metal style riff drumming, but also a lot of rhythmic elaboration and syncopation. The style is not only driving and energetic, but almost…jazzy. In my opinion, it’s what gives this album its drive, uniqueness, and a lot of its musical depth. Overall, I’d say Soulside Journey is a great recording for anyone into the “Swedish progressive” style of death metal- solid, driving, well paced, and full of great rhythm.

Track listing:
1. Cromlech
2. Sunrise Over Locus Mortis
3. Soulside Journey
4. Accumulation Of Generalization
5. Neptune Towers
6. Sempiternal Sepulchrality
7. Grave With A View
8. Iconoclasm Sweeps Cappadocia
9. Nor the Silent Whispers
10. The Watchtower
11. Eon