(Original Review):

And to think that this is the band that released Transilvanian Hunger. We used to blame this on the demise of Zephyrous, until it surfaced that he left the band after Under A Funeral Moon, thereby being absent on the album universally regarded as black metal’s high point, the Reign In Blood of black metal if you will. I have decided that Darkthrone’s turning into worthless shite lies in the hair. Just think about it, it makes perfect sense. Metallica cut their hair and disintegrated into unlistenable garbage, Satyr cut his hair and Satyricon became even shittier than they were to begin with, Varg Vikernes cut his hair and Burzum has never been the same, most, if not all of the guys in Dødheimsgard cut their hair… Garm cut his hair around the time Ulver turned into shitty electronic music… Ihsahn cut his hair and Emperor became worthless power metal wankery. And, the last nail in the fucking coffin - Nocturno Culto shaved his head back in the day, probably sometime between Total Death and Ravishing Grimness. And listen to this, Plaguewielder. Rehashed. Redone. Repeated. Reinterpreted. Nocturno Culto seems to think he’s still in Satyricon and Fenriz probably isn’t writing any material at all. I won’t even give this album a single point for effort - I cannot comprehend why Darkthrone are still releasing albums. This release has no redeeming values. Not a single one. For the first time in their career, Darkthrone release an album with a full-color cover. In the past, all covers have been either black and white or bluescale. Gorgoroth released Incipit Satan, the first album of theirs with any hints of color on the cover, and it only had a single good song on it. Emperor went for full color after Emperor and they became shit. Yes, I’m saying In The Nightside Eclipse is shit, ’cause that’s exactly what it is. Go ahead, Pollacks, Armenians and Swiss wankers, e-mail me and spend an hour of your life cussing me out because I’m saying an overrated piece of worthless stupidity is exactly that. The next time someone asks me who my favorite band is, I’m going to hesitate before I answer ‘Darkthrone.’ So here’s to you, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto, for your splendid work on Plaguewielder: fuck off.

(Second Opinion):

After having listened to this album a godawful number of times after initially reviewing it, I have gathered some thoughts not expressed the first time around. I still can’t get over how bad this album is. Everything about it is completely wrong. The music, written mostly by Nocturno Culto (Fenriz has written only one song as on Ravishing Grimness) is so dreadfully boring it makes me want to listen to Satyricon instead. The production is non-existent, sounding like the band simply plugged in their instruments and recorded the album right onto tape. The guitars are about as intrusive as a wheelchair-bound dwarf on valium, and Fenriz might be playing faster and tighter than in years, but when he starts pulling off fancy-assed fills he might as well just shelve the entire idea. Nocturno Culto’s vocals are the same as the last time around, and they’re frankly not very interesting to listen to now that Fenriz doesn’t write worthwhile lyrics any longer (compare "Absurd rivalry / Übertragic trinity" from "Sin Origin" with "Lover of all - face the apocalypse / You fade away under the black rain / And flowers remain" from "Summer Of The Diabolical Holocaust"). People are probably fooling themselves going "Hey, it’s bad for a Darkthrone album, but that’s just ’cause Darkthrone’s old albums are really, really good," but this is simply bad. In the intro (which incidentally is the best part of the entire album) it is stated "It’s not by death but by life that death kills life." This applies brilliantly to Darkthrone; it is not by not releasing albums Darkthrone are disappearing, it is by continuing to do so. It seems the band burned themselves completely out with Transilvanian Hunger, then somehow managed to keep Panzerfaust from being a devilish bore with the Celtic Frost bits, and then came along Total Death and the following boredom. In one of the songs on this album (don’t ask me which, I certainly can’t tell the travesties from each other) the band suddenly breaks into a riff that would’ve fit perfectly on The Shadowthrone. What the hell is this about? Satyricon ripped off Darkthrone and now it’s the other way around? What’s next, is Dissection going to cover "Forhekset" and write ridiculous rhetoric lyrics about grinding filth and vultures? To top of the insanely crap full color artwork, the spine of the digipak has the band name written in a font dangerously similar to comic sans, which is pretty much the gayest fucking font I could ever imagine given how much time it could possibly take. The rest of the artwork is done in regular second-wave Moonfog style, which translates to fucking awful. This is what the ‘kings of true Norwegian black metal’ have become, and I don’t like it. The only positive thing I can think of about this album is that Fenriz looks worse than ever before in the booklet. He looks like he’s 60 years old, and considering the cow dung he passes off for Darkthrone these days, he might as well be just that. Having suffered through this album another time whilst writing this review, I’m now going to listen to old Satyricon instead. Not even 8+ minutes of cut and paste songwriting courtesy of Sigurd Wongraven can match the boredom this album induces.

Written By: Angry Norse