Quarantining with Darkthrone

 I’ve been listening to a lot of black metal and crust punk throughout quarantine and especially in the last month or so as things have been getting more and more hectic for me. It seems to me the crazier things get, the crazier my music taste becomes. I’m not sure if it’s because this is the kind of music I listened to as a kid or if it’s because I want to listen to how I feel. I can’t tell but I enjoy it. Darkthrone in particular has always been a favourite band of mine and one that I think has a lot of hauntological music. A lot of their music is not just inspired by past but is an attempt to recreate the past and create a new black metal that is a synthesis of whatever past genre and black metal. It’s interesting to listen to, especially given Fenriz’s famous encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of heavy music. I think an interrogation of black metal’s relationship to the past is in order.