«A Blaze in the Northern Sky» is Darkthrone’s second album and their first purely black metal one. It was released on 26 February 1992 by Peaceville. It was recorded in August 1991 at Creative Studios in Kolbotn, the same studio where Mayhem wrote «Deathcrush». The line-up is Nocturno Culto on guitar and vocals, Zephyrous on rhythm guitar and Fenriz on drums, with Dag Nilsen on bass as a session musician.
“`Country: Norway
Style: Black Metal
For fans of: Celtic Frost, Bathory, Venom
The album is the band’s turn from the death metal of «Soulside Journey» to a frozen, filthy black metal. The sound is sparse and rough, with riffs that still carry death metal, played with a different mood. Fenriz himself has said that many tracks had «death metal riffs, played the black metal way».
It is the first part of the «Unholy Trinity», together with «Under a Funeral Moon» and «Transylvanian Hunger», and the last album with Dag Nilsen, who disagreed with the turn to black metal.
Peaceville hesitated at first to release it and asked for a remix, saying the sound was «too weak». The band threatened to give it to Euronymous’ Deathlike Silence and in the end the album came out as it had been recorded.
The album runs 42 minutes. «Kathaarian Life Code», «In the Shadow of the Horns» and «Paragon Belial» stand out.
On the cover is guitarist Ivar Enger, that is Zephyrous. The album is dedicated to Euronymous, while the first CD edition was limited to 2,000 copies, with a white disc.
In 2003 the album was reissued on digipak with the second part of a video documentary, and in 2009 it came out again as a double vinyl. In 2020 it entered the permanent exhibition of the National Library of Norway, for its importance in Norwegian culture and its role as a foundation of Norwegian black metal.
See also: Øystein «Euronymous» Aarseth: The Rise and Fall of the Mayhem Founder and Vingulmork – Barmhjertighetens Fallitt | Metal Territory.
