Darkthrone - The Hardship Of The Scots
Key Facts
Country: 🇳🇴
Genre: Black N Roll, Black Metal, Doom
Release Date: April 24th 2019
Record Label(s): Peaceville Records
Highest Chart Position: N/A
Album Release Date: 31st May 2019
Band Members:
Fenriz (Gylve Fenris Nagell) - drums, rhythm guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals, lyrics
Nocturno Culto (Ted Skjellum) - vocals, lead guitar, bass, producer, lyrics
Song Video
Review
Rating (Out of 5🤘): 🤘🤘🤘🤘
Black metal legends, Darkthrone, are back with a riff laden, doom bringing, new single from upcoming album Old Star. The Hardship Of The Scots incorporates everything I love about Darkthrone, with elements of Sabbath inspired doom, segments of black 'n' roll and passages of their traditional riff heavy black metal with vocals that are raw and unforgiving. In summary, it is no nonsense heavy-fucking-brutal-metal.
Firstly, I love the way this single was announced to us, straight through Darkthrone's social media with no hype up or waiting. "We have a new album, so we thought you should hear a new song" basically words to that effect, and I personally love it when bands do that. As far as the song is concerned, musically for me its an instant classic and recognisably Darkthrone whilst offering something different. The Hardship Of The Scots comes from the minds of very seasoned songwriters. The song perfectly mixes slower and faster sections and transitioning between them with solid grooves, riffs and rhythms. If I was to compare it to their previous work, it reminds me of a mixture of the songs Inbred Vermin and Throw Me Through The Marshes off of 2017's Arctic Thunder album.
The production quality has gone up significantly, moving away from the more black metal style of production that we have become accustomed to with Darkthrone, and going for a cleaner sounding heavy metal or thrash style of production. Despite this, it still sounds so raw and powerful, especially with the thunderous kick. It's the cymbals and high-hats that stick out most for me as they cut right through the mix and sit just above the guitar distortion, in essence everything space is filled with something and not having to fight with typical black metal tape distortion.
If this is what the first single is then consider me super excited for Old Star! This is definitely a song for tearing up hell to while drinking the blackest of black stouts. I will always admire Darkthrone for doing what they want to do, The Hardship Of The Scots demonstrates this perfectly, they've never been shy to experiment with their sound in case someone doesn't like it, because those people are usually told to fuck off and quite rightly so! Bring on May 31st!
Firstly, I love the way this single was announced to us, straight through Darkthrone's social media with no hype up or waiting. "We have a new album, so we thought you should hear a new song" basically words to that effect, and I personally love it when bands do that. As far as the song is concerned, musically for me its an instant classic and recognisably Darkthrone whilst offering something different. The Hardship Of The Scots comes from the minds of very seasoned songwriters. The song perfectly mixes slower and faster sections and transitioning between them with solid grooves, riffs and rhythms. If I was to compare it to their previous work, it reminds me of a mixture of the songs Inbred Vermin and Throw Me Through The Marshes off of 2017's Arctic Thunder album.
The production quality has gone up significantly, moving away from the more black metal style of production that we have become accustomed to with Darkthrone, and going for a cleaner sounding heavy metal or thrash style of production. Despite this, it still sounds so raw and powerful, especially with the thunderous kick. It's the cymbals and high-hats that stick out most for me as they cut right through the mix and sit just above the guitar distortion, in essence everything space is filled with something and not having to fight with typical black metal tape distortion.
If this is what the first single is then consider me super excited for Old Star! This is definitely a song for tearing up hell to while drinking the blackest of black stouts. I will always admire Darkthrone for doing what they want to do, The Hardship Of The Scots demonstrates this perfectly, they've never been shy to experiment with their sound in case someone doesn't like it, because those people are usually told to fuck off and quite rightly so! Bring on May 31st!
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