While their record label and most fans will tell you otherwise, Satyricon's debut album "Dark Medieval Times" was really their best. It comes in, after an odd intro that sounds like horns and gun-cocks, with the song "Walk the Path of Sorrow," an eight-minute masterpiece that punches you in the face, breaks down in to a flute and acoustic number, and then punches you in the face again. The rest of the album is very similar. Harsh, piercing, cold black metal, and medieval breakdowns. The production quality of this album is debatable. Many argue that it is poor and cheaply produced, however, I have yet to hear a black metal album which so properly evokes the cold and hate that the bands want it to. Satyr's vocals, having been passed through who knows how many different reverbs, screech like Satan's nails on the chalkboard at a Catholic school. While some of the other early-90's black metal bands were busy trying to throw out as many albums as they could blaspheming as many ways as possible, Satyricon wrote about fog and castles, and fog-castles while still maintaining a vehemently anti-Christian view. Dark Medieval Times freezes your mind while burning your church. A sample from "Walk the Path of Sorrow" starting with a medieval breakdown, can be found here.
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