Darkthrone – Under a Funeral Moon (1993)
Under A Funeral Moon is the 3rd album by Darkthrone, It is their second album in the Black Metal style. It is also an album that defined Black Metal. In my mind it is what Black Metal, and in their time period thought of as “2nd Wave” Black Metal, is all about. The feeling, the sound, the lyrics, the style.
Dank and organic, creating images of black swirling chaos, as of nature. Combined with the chaos created by human hands, a monochrome image of absolute freedom and absolute void composed against the intensely earthy, loamy forest grit, lichen, moss and such of natures decay. Leather, resolute metal, a beacon of modernity through instrumentation, like a lighthouse shouting into nowhere; and that is in no way a problem or a worry…its is existence.
The wild expression of human nothingness, and oneness with everything. The comparison of the individual against the unfathomable infinity of the universe.
Under A Funeral Moon is unarguably one of most powerful and complete Black Metal album as far as the true essence of Black Metal. And, as far as I am concerned, it is one of the best Black Metal album ever (The other being Darkthrones Transilvanian Hunger…also a highly definitive Black Metal album , “2nd Wave” or not, but in a totally different way.)
It is the sound of Black Metal, for it is at once a metal album in the most basic sense, and at the same time it is the soundscape of complete misanthropic disassociation from humanity, the super-massive reality of nature, darkness, space and eternity.
You watch me face the mirror
And see desecration
With my art I am the fist
In the face of god
