Darkthrone - Under a Funeral Moon (Black Metal)

Under a Funeral Moon shows Darkthrone in its infancy, shedding much of the useless crooner rock and other gimmicks from A Blaze in the Northern Sky, while not yet reaching the levels of genius riff craft and song writing that the band would display on their magnum opus Transilvanian Hunger.

This album, as with much of Burzum's early work and Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, helped form the prototype of underground black metal that would go on to inspire legions of copycat bands content to recycle the innovative breakthroughs of Zephyrous, Fenriz, Nocturno Culto, and of course Varg Vikernes, Euronymous, Hellhammer, and the rest of the Norwegian underground black metal scene.

With regards to Under a Funeral Moon, the principal originator of Darkthrone's raw black metal sound is naturally guitarist Zephyrous, who also happens to be the main composer of the album's best track, "Inn i de dype skogers favn", a track which would in turn form the structural blueprint for the music found on Transilvanian Hunger. If you can imagine the song "Inn i de dype skogers favn" mixed with Varg Vikernes' clever use of contrasting melodies, you can easily understand why Transilvanian Hunger is praised as one of black metal's most monumental masterpieces.

As for Under a Funeral Moon, while it may lack some of the genius song writing that Varg would use on Transilvanian Hunger (for he contributed to more than mere lyrics), it makes up for it with Zephyrous' raw and acerbic guitar style. A necessary black metal stepping-stone which led to masterpieces such as The Epilogue to Sanity, Demon Rituals and Fenrir Prowling, Under a Funeral Moon is one of Darkthrone's rawest and most primitive attempts at black metal. Recommended for fans of the band, and of the black metal genre as a whole.