Darkthrone - Panzerfaust

Transilvanian Hunger, made washed-out and derivative.

Make no mistake, Panzerfaust is an important, influential, and perhaps even good black metal album, by it just doesn't live of to its two predecessors Under a Funeral Moon and Transilvanian Hunger. Not even to Soulside Journey. The best it can be is A Blaze in the Northern Sky, and that's an artistic regression from the peaks of minimalist black metal music reached on Under a Funeral Moon and Transilvanian Hunger.

This album is powerful, as it shows black metal at its roots. The heavy dissonant riffing, minimalist yet linear song structures and heavy atmospheres are all influences on modern black metal. Similarly, the powerful overbearing volume and the typically simple drumming are all features on the album, which again, is reciprocated in modern black metal. The riff-craft can get quite good and, at times, you will be led to believe you are listening to the successor of Transilvanian Hunger. But the illusion doesn't last, and soon you are caught up with the reality of having to listen to a formulaic and derivative version of Darkthrone's opus.

What kills the music on Panzerfaust is its predictability. And that's precisely where Transilvanian Hunger shined, in that the simple riffs and compositions were nonetheless surprisingly challenging due to the unpredictable, capricious, quasi-unstable nature of the music

Prefer Under a Funeral Moon, Transilvanian Hunger or anything by Burzum.

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