Gotcha. Nothing old here but 100% new materials by Darkthrone. Knowing it's Darkthrone, 'new' is subjective. The manipulations will always end up as a Darkthrone serving despite a pinch of whatever other genre the band serves to embrace as flavour of the moment. Old Star has lots of doom to offer. With that, the inevitable slow-down-&-destroy pace that dominated the music from start to end. I can't say it's a definitive Dark Throne release like Soul Side Journey, Under a Funeral Moon, Transylvanian Hunger & dare we include, FOAD, but it's one of those releases that defies clustering.
Production-wise, there seems to be an errant buzzing in the mix which doesn't sound musical (already evident in the second track, The Hardship of the Scots). Maybe it was meant to be as such or someone actually overlooked a dislocated EQ slider at the mixing console. At the very least, it sounds annoying. As implicated, the doom branding here has nothing to offer in terms of menacing intensity, everything is calculated & cold. There's no rush to prove anything. In fact, the mid-tempo, palm muted riffs remain to be one of the album's highlight (Alp Man) like Black Sabbath meets Cathedral only to be out finessed by Darkthrone themselves. Anyway, I like Old Star & glad they didn't pull off another punk episode. Here's wishing them other fine moments to come that could finally afford Nocturno a bass of his own. Then again, the point here might be to not own a bass & stay kult.
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