Immortal ‎– Sons Of Northern Darkness (2002)

August 14, 2012

One of the first black metal records I ever heard, and one of my favourites. I waited a very long time to get this on wax; eventually getting a copy on white when Back on Black were good enough to release represses. The original vinyl pressings on Nuclear Blast are worth a bit more, but that’s ok, I’m not particularly wild or fanatical enough about black metal in the grand scheme of things, so I can let the original pressings slide and live with a repressed copy.

Immortal seem to have a surprisingly varied back catalogue with albums ranging from the downright ‘necro’ right through to highly produced riff fests, such as this. I gotta be honest, I think I prefer this Immortal to the ‘vltra kvlt’ Immortal sound. They are really talented metal musicians and the almost thrashy sound works well for them.

I’m not entirely sure if Immortal are serious or not, although I guess this lends to the whole ‘atmosphere’ surrounding them. Do they really, really think they are more metal than metal itself with all that gurning and waving about of spiked weaponry? Or is it all just an act and they always laugh at themselves? Who knows! I gotta say, I really wouldn’t be surprised either way. Some crazy shit has come out of Norway in the last twenty years or so.

I didn’t order the coloured version so I was mega happy when I ended up with a white copy, thank you HMV. The HMV store is generally very poor but if your in the UK you can get a limited supply of vinyl at generally very acceptable prices with the added bonus of free shipping thrown into the mix. Bonza value, mate! £9.99 for a double LP delivered to my house is pretty awesome.