Brandon of Stereogum recently conducted an interview with Fenriz of Darkthrone. A few excerpts of the chat follow below:

STEREOGUM: you've experimented with different approaches throughout your career ?with The Cult Is Alive you shifted to a more blackened crusty punk sound. What inspired that direction?

FENRIZ: ?Experimented? sounds like we are mad scientists in a lab ? but we're just making what we need to do, each on our own since summer ?91 when I decided we?d start making songs on our own. we're driven by coincidence ? it is very free form. With The Cult Is Alive ? well what lead up to that was that Ted said let's get a portable studio of our own and then I knew it was going to sound rougher than ever. Knowing that really knocked out some walls in my songwriting, but it was Ted that wrote the single, the rather punky ?Too Old, Too Cold,? a totally untypical song from Ted?s and also considering he probably doesn?t own ?Feel The Darkness? with Poison Idea. And our only ?music video? followed that song, the rest of the album is more or less thrash without being played like thrash, black without being played like usual black, unusual punk, unusual death, strange combos of Motorhead and Celtic Frost (that would be me) and last but not least my fave song ?Forebyggende Krig,? which once and for all cements my eternal love for Dream Death and for those about to rock-song structure?

STEREOGUM: That sound's explored and expanded upon with Circle The Wagon. You get the punk, but it's also very metal. I'm thinking of the chorus on Those Treasures Will Never Befall You, a bunch of the guitar solos, etc. Clearly you guys have always been metal, but there are moments here that make me think of metal in terms of Slough Feg, or someone ? Pure power metal or speed metal, almost. you've described it as ?heavy metal/speed metal-punk.? In your own words, how has the sound shifted from F.O.A.D. and Dark Thrones And Black Flags to Circle?

FENRIZ: Our style and Slough Feg has very little in common, mostly because they cram alot of notes into their riffs and I do not, also rhythms are very different but it's great honour to be mentioned with them as they fought the HEAVY METAL fight in the darkest year of heavy metal: 1998. so drink some beer in the kitchen out of a horn for them!

From The Cult Is Alive came The Trilogy [of] Fuck Off And Die, Dark Thrones And Black Flags, Circle The Wagon, each of them more heavy metal than the other, which is basically what we are doing as a band ? moving very slowly backwards. When we started we were inspired by 1986-1987 and since then we used 23 years to move mainly to 1979-1985 where we are now, haha!!

The main change for this album is not one black metal riff and only one bass drum on eight of the songs. It was what I needed to do, but it's hard ? I always played with double kick since 1987, so now there's even more nerve ? as in nervousness ? in my drumming. Oh, we also had the guitar amp in another room than the drum set, so they don?t spill into one another.

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