Darkthrone - Old Star

Old Star is the 17th studio album by Norwegian black metal band Darkthrone, released in May 2019 via Peaceville.

The Norwegian black metal legends Darkthrone mark their return with a sublime new slab of relentless riffing in the true spirit of the underground.

Over the course of 30 years, Norway's Darkthrone has become a staple of the global black metal genre, forging a legacy as one of the most renowned and influential bands in its illustrious and often infamous history. In their formative years, Darkthrone initially started making their mark with a strong concoction of thrash and then death/doom metal experimentation, before the debut album Soulside Journey was unleashed in 1991.

Never ones to follow convention or stand still even then, the band soon embraced a much darker, more primitive form of expression with the now iconic second album A Blaze in the Northern Sky, and the rest became history.

Now the longstanding duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto return with their first studio album since 2016's hugely popular Arctic Thunder opus, in the shape of Old Star.

With a mastery and endless dedication to the art of the riff, the Norwegian legends cut through six new epic tracks, taking in the best of the old school of heavy and extreme metal plus a large dose of doom-laden riffing, and channelling it through the grime of the underground.

Engineering and production duties were all carried out by vocalist/guitarist Nocturno Culto, complemented with a perfectly organic mix courtesy of Sanford Parker (Voivod) at Hypercube Studios, and mastered once more by Jack Control at Enormous Door. The stellar cover artistry comes courtesy of Chadwick St John, titled "The Shepherd of the Deep".

The album is on 180 gram heavyweight vinyl with a printed inner sleeve, pressed in Europe via Peaceville.