By Dave Griffiths
Darkthrone’s highly anticipated studio album Pre-Historic Metal officially marks a thunderous milestone for the legendary Norwegian black metal outfit.
Released via Peaceville Records, this latest studio effort serves as a monumental celebration of the band’s 40-year creative legacy, stretching all the way back to their primitive roots in the mid-1980s when they initially formed under the moniker Black Death. Moving away from predictable genre conventions, the iconic duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto delivers an uncompromising record that captures a raw, caveman-like spirit while pushing forward with a refined, modern craft.
Musically, Pre-Historic Metal features a dense, eight-track arrangement designed to deliver a punishing auditory experience. Fans can expect an immersive journey through a diverse range of extreme styles, including:
Thrash Metal: Fast-paced, aggressive tempos that invoke early underground tape-trading days.
Black Metal: Incendiary, grim undertones that honour their legendary Norwegian heritage.
Doom Metal: Massive, low-tuned, and agonisingly slow riffs that weigh heavily on the listener.
Traditional Heavy Metal: An organic, in-your-face guitar presence deeply inspired by the golden eras of the 1970s and 1980s.
Unlike the longer, airier arrangements found in their prior discography, the band intentionally tightened the tourniquet for this release. They focused heavily on highly effective, concentrated tracks brimming with giant guitar hooks and a relentlessly thick rhythmic section, promising fans an experience befitting their four decades of mayhem.
HEAVY sent Fenriz across some questions in an exclusive interview for Australian media.
HEAVY: Pre-Historic Metal brilliantly captures the old and new – does that come easy to you both, or does it take a lot of work?
FENRIZ: Hiya, top of the morning, Australia!
You know, I’m embarrassingly late to the party here, but Happy Tom from Turbonegro JUST sent me that MARCUS HOOK ROLL BAND song Natural Man, and I’m DIGGING IT! BTW, did you know that KISS Unmasked was a “flop” BUT not in Norway and Australia?! A LOT of metal celebs from here are still crazy about that album, as am I.
Back to the question, it couldn’t have been easier for me. Since 2015, I get most of the riffs while watching soccer matches (I watch circa 300 a year these days), so it’s hard to even take credit for it – and yeah, I do have to put them together. But if you ask what inspired them, I have no answer except for all the metal that is embedded in me since I was a toddler, or simply ourselves. It’s a mystery at this point, but I suspect a lot of the metal I’ve heard in the formative years that I still love the best must be some kinda BASIS for these easily picked riffs that just fall into my head.
So my riff banks are insanely full of riffs. However, right before studio time, I tend to make fresh stuff and get excited about that and just forget about checking out the riff bank most of the time, which is probably a shame cuz the riffs there might be better. But freshness beats it all, and for this album, I made some more savage stuff than usual, so I scrapped the long planned cover and album title (deeply rooted) and instead focused on a subtitle for one of my titles for the album – draconian and vigilant (prehistoric metal). The studio session was more brutal or wild than normal, and on top of this, I was listening to The Barbarian by Manninnya Blade a lot in those times, and so I wanted to call the album Prehistoric Metal.
I made a sketch that was kinda influenced by PUKE‘s Back to the Stone Age album cover. Then the artist and we and Paul at Peaceville had to work together on it cuz i wanted the design to resemble ACERO METAL‘s excellent Legiones album cover, as it’s perfect for a shirt. We’d never had any good shirt-album covers. BUT this whole process took a while, and we were nearing the deadline, so I just decided to take several photos of myself looking the way I look on the inside when I listen to Sodom Obsessed By Cruelty STEAMHAMMER LP version (important). So we went with that as the main cover, and the other cover ended up on the special edition, but really I wanted two covers equally like the first DEATHROW album that we adore (Riders of Doom/Satan’s Gift), but alas…
With Ted, I have no idea, as usual. He starts playing guitar and making songs 3 months before the studio time. But it’s probably kinda easy for him too, not like getting blood from a stone or anything. Oh oh! BLOOODSTONE!!! Cool Priest-song!
HEAVY: When you first sat down to work on this album, what kinds of things were you talking about wanting to achieve or capture?
FENRIZ: When we entered Chaka Khan for the first time in 2020, we had done 7 albums, recording ourselves on Necrohell 2, our own mini-studio, which had gotten obsolete and was missing a crucial part. So I thought WAIT, NOW WE ARE GOING TO A REAL STUDIO?! Time to make those songs I wanted to make since the beginning of the band back in 87 and 88.
There were several long, drawn-out epic songs on the following albums, but for this album, I only did one. There were no riffs more than 4 times repeated after one another on that song, but here’s what I’m leading up to: we usually don’t discuss much before starting on the material. As I’ve said, I always get riffs anyway, but this time our small pre-studio discussion was based around the fact that we wanted 8 songs, meaning shorter songs, more riffs than ever and more effective. So that’s why I only have one “plodder” on this album – hey, where’s my Iplod?! HAHAHA.
HEAVY: It is rumoured that you collaborated more than ever with this album. Tell us a little about those sessions where you fleshed things out.
FENRIZ: That would be in the studio, as we haven’t rehearsed before the album since 2003. Ted just wanted me to do more bass guitar and also some guitar, and I am good at coming up with harmonies (usually AFTER the albums are out, d’oh!! Haha). I did some of that and played some guitar and “solo” on the title track as well, but Ted is such a steady guitar player that I think it’s best he does 95% of the guitars at least. He wanted me to sing more because it must be weird singing other people’s lyrics, which is why I usually do them. When he does the vocals, he is his normal steady self, but when I do vocals, I do MY vocals, so there’s so much feeling attached to it that I go totally mental. “I was like a crazy man” hahaha (BAD NEWS reference). Ted finally brought his pedal rack, which my riffs on all 3 previous albums would have needed, haha, so we got a killer guitar sound, and also he brought his new synth and seemed to play his best synth stuff, even improvising, I think, on the final part of They Found One of My Graves.
HEAVY: You used some of the writing methods that you used in the early days – can you tell us a little about those methods?
FENRIZ: Not at all like in the early days, I took up the quilting method I used back in the early 2000s, meaning…well, lyrics and interviews actually are the hardest obstacle for us releasing records all the time. And that’s a good thing cuz otherwisee we’d be flooding the market with two albums a year, which would be IDIOTIC INFLATION at this point in our career. So I pick up lines or lines come up, and they are pretty much all titles, really.
I stick them to paper with a pen – a process that takes 2 years – it goes so slow now cuz writing lyrics after having done that for 40 years…it’s almost impossible not to repeat oneself. So when the album draws near, it’s out with the papers and see which one of all the “titles” gives me the most inspiration. Then I sew together a lyric using many of the other lines that are already there, now and then adding on or rewriting and whatnot. Of course, it is impossible for our videomaker-guy Matt to get anything comprehensible out of as it is just a well of Hell mostly. It would be easier for our video guy if our lyrics went:
Nocturno Culto checks out a local stream
While perhaps having a beer or two
Fenriz is watching soccer
Puts on an album by The Who
If you get my drift…
HEAVY: What was the recording process like?
FENRIZ: That’s explained in question 3, I believe. I usually play more on the soundcheck than on the entire album. I doubt if I play more than 1 hour or 1 hour and 20 minutes for the album, we usually go for the first take hehe! No metronome or in-ear shit is used. After all, we play prehistoric metal like the cave dwellers we are, so that it sounds more ALIVE and not machines playing, like so many have sounded like since… I dunno, that RIOT album that came out in 88? And it’s only gotten worse.
Now people mix at home endlessly on their DAWs, adding stuff and moving beats to “perfection” and making everything sound completely sterile. I mean, I even think King Diamond sounded too sterile compared to Mercyful Fate when I was a mere toddler! HAHA! SO I GUESS I am the one with the problem, but that at least is an explanation of how we work in the studio and why we sound like we sound.
After drum feedback, we usually do a couple of Ted‘s songs as he sends the guitar versions of them before, and I could do drumming in my head to them (I haven’t rehearsed drums since 94, I wanna regress to Ventor‘s Endless Pain – album KIDDING/NOT KIDDING). Then we play, and record and Ted puts on a second guitar while I go through my songs so I can teach Ted how to play them on guitar. Then we record some of mine, and then repeat before adding bass, and finally vocals and synth if we have some. We are quick in the studio and very hands-off, let what happens happen, and mistakes are often included.
HEAVY: There is a very ‘in your face’ feel with the guitars. Was that something that you planned, or did it happen organically?
FENRIZ: Ted brought his guitar pedal rack, and he also likes LOUD guitars. I like lower guitars, but I’m outvoted, which might be a good thing, cuz if not, we’d always have the same soundscape as the Piece Of Mind album by Maiden. Most metal albums would be better if they had that sound, if you ask me, but then again, we and others wouldn’t sound like ourselves then, would we?
HEAVY: You seem to drift easily through genres on this album – what do you feel were your biggest influences on the album?
FENRIZ: I have no clue where my riffs come from, but probably the stuff I like best from my formative years must be playing a part in it, or else I might as well just get polka riffs while watching soccer. If we were playing by what we like to listen to and trying to be like them, like IN THAT WAY influenced, we’d just be doing the A-side of the first Metal Church album over and over, so we’re not influenced that way. However, Tom G‘s guitar riffing style and vocal delivery had such a huge impact on me back when I had short hair, even, that it’s hard to escape, as it’s in my bloodstream. Ted is certainly NOT influenced by Megadeth, as rumour has it 🙂.
HEAVY: This year marks the 40th anniversary of the band. How does that make you feel? Going right back to the start, did you think way back then that Darkthrone would still be going so strong 40 years later?
FENRIZ: Dude, I think about time in that way all the TIME, man. Ever since I first got a digital watch, maybe back in ’83, I was obsessed with time, and I think it’s playing a number on my head. Time goes so much faster when ya grow older and death is knocking at the door. I know this is because a lot of stuff is NEW when ya grow up, and that makes the brain “count time” differently than now when it’s a lot of routine, but damn it, I fought long and hard to get into my comfort zone – 100 angry badgers couldn’t drag me out of it now!
I was looking forward to 2026, thinking I would have a strong focus on all the killer albums I bought 40 years ago, but it hasn’t happened much! Good thing perhaps, that I’ve maybe lost that darn time focus a bit now! What a miracle! Maybe life really gets better after turning 50 after all!
HEAVY: What else do you have planned for 2026? Will you be touring? Writing more music, etc.?
FENRIZ: I literally LIVE FOR having a totally void and empty calendar! I’ve got a couple of metal garden parties to attend ahead of that. Is. IT! The riffs come no matter what. Since my riff banks are so full, many a time when they pop into my head, I just let them fly by and see if I remember them the next day, and if I do, it starts to plague me, so I pick up the guitar and record them so they don’t weigh on my mind. But the rest of 2026 and 2027 looks pretty void, and that’s the way I want it. Gotta keep working with lyrics though. It’s down to 3 lines a month max now, takes sooo much time.
HEAVY: What would you like to say to your fans before they sit down and listen to the album?
FENRIZ: I am envious! NO NO, It’s not because I’m bragging – it’s because I could never just sit down and listen to music myself. I get the most out of music when I’m doing something mundane – like my job was mundane for 33 years – so I could easily analyse and rate music on small pre-written notes in a line system, for instance. As a kid, I used to read comics or, even better, sort my soccer cards while listening to music. In the late 80s, I used to do the mail while listening to music. I was a tapetrader and a band runner, and snail mail was sooo friggin important you wouldn’t believe it.
I guess I just wanna say that you might hear some cool riffs or cool parts, what riff or part works best for YOU?
ORDER YOUR COPY, STREAM OR DOWNLOAD PRE-HISTORIC METAL HERE
