Peaceville Records (2012)

Darkthrone needs no introductions. Although we all know Darkthrone as one of the forefathers of Nordic black metal, there was a time before their world lost all its colours.

As the title of the album says; ”Sempiternal Past” is a compilation of the band's demos from 1988's ”Land of Frost” to 1989's live-bootleg, recorded during the ”Cromlech” demo-sessions. These songs have been released few times before on different bootlegs, and most of the songs can be heard on a official ”Preparing for War” -album too.

Times were different almost 25 years ago, and so was Darkthrone; young lads playing death metal on the edge of their abilities and playing skills. The music was supposed to be as evil and aggressive as possible, but today it sounds just... disarming - compared to the later classic black metal works of the band.

The band's first full length album ”Soulside Journey” (1991) is highly underrated, so instead of buying this piece of clumsy demos, it'll be better to invest your golden coins to ”Soulside Journey”, which includes most of these songs with better overall quality. 

www.darkthrone.no
www.peaceville.com

Rating: 2.5 / 6

Composed by Joni Juutilainen