Reviewed - 09/30/04

The Best Of Old-School Black Metal
[Peaceville Records]

What we have here is a compilation album of old school black metal bands (hence the title) that Darthrone/Storm/Dodheimsgard member Fenriz has compiled and released which gives the listener a one song sample of many of the bands that he was influenced by.

This was kind of an odd concept if you ask me. I mean, this compilation is full of bands that any thrash/black metal fan probably already has in their collection. The one and only band I had not heard before getting this promo was Blasphemy, and I liked them a lot so I can't say the list of bands populating the album were all old news to me. At first I thought this was Fenriz doing his own renditions of each song (which would have been much better), but these are all original versions done by the real deal bands that initially created them. You'll find mostly older late 80's/early 90's bands on here such as Destruction, Celtic Frost, Venom and Mercyful Fate, but there are also a few newer bands such as Nattefrost and Aura Noir that I guess Fenriz put on here because these bands capture the same essence of this early style of black metal. I guess black metal can be interpreted differently by anyone who listens to it, but try as I might I just can't place bands like Venom and Mercyful Fate into the "black metal" category. They are thrash to me. But this is Fenriz's deal, and he's free to call it how he interprets it.

The production naturally varies widely just because of the fact that each song was recorded by different bands in different studios on different equipment at different times. Overall, most of the songs are not very well produced, but that was the in thing of that time. I applaud Fenriz for not trying to remaster these great works of metal.

The packaging is well... there was no real packaging included with this promo. That's a a shame too because on the promo papers sent to me, it stated that in the booklet of the proper CD release, Fenriz goes into depth on why he picked each song to be on this album and why each song and band is important to him. I wish I could have read that before I reviewed this because that's basically the whole point of this album is to see what Fenriz finds amazing about these songs. The cover has a black and white photo of Fenriz pounding away at the drums in front of an Iron Maiden poster. It's nothing spectacular, but it gets the job done, I suppose.

I actually like this compilation a lot despite many of the negative things I've said earlier. It's just that I don't understand the point of releasing a compilation full of songs that most people into this genre are likely to own already. If you are new to this style of music, then this is the perfect thing for you to get and expand your blackened metal horizons. Also, since it is filled with great songs and has a running time of well over seventy minutes, it is a great CD for established black metal fans to take on road trips with them. So yeah, the concept is a little goofy, but the music contained on the album is great, so that's why it got a higher score than what may have seemed likely based on most of this review. While I liked this album, I think the time Fenriz took to compile these songs and release this album would have been better spent working on a new Storm album.