Bathory – Under The Sign Of The Black Mark (1987)

June 3, 2023

My professional opinion about this piece of work is thus: this shit fucking slaps. Everything from the artwork to the production to the guitar tone is just absolutely fucking perfect. Well, not perfect, but pretty damn fucking good, y’know? Anyway, Under The Sign Of The Black Mark is when Quothorn more or less takes the fate of Bathory into his own hands, performing pretty much fucking every single role on this thing except for the drums.

Everything that was great about the first two Bathory albums is turned up to 11 here: the riffs are far more sinister, the drums aren’t as sloppy and the vocals are absolutely savage. As daft as it might sound, things slow down a lot too, falling into some wicked grooves, like on “Call From The Grave”.

Contender for best Bathory album? Definitely.