Review by Jeger on July 15, 2024.

Of Svarttjern’s many desecrations and of all their crimes, it’s their debut LP, 2009’s “Misanthropic Path of Madness” that gets me reminiscing over the sweet smell of formaldehyde and the bitter fire of Jim Beam. Okay, maybe not the formaldehyde but you get the idea. I drank a shit-ton of Beam growing up and to say that my taste in music, whiskey, women and basically any of life’s props was fucked up would be the understatement of the year. To fuck up is to be human! And to truly experience the fire of youth in all of its debauched glory, all of that volatile energy and an overall attitude of fuck it all to compliment such an obnoxious personality, is something few get to actually experience. I feel like “Misanthropic Path of Madness”, notwithstanding what feels like pretty conventional black metal thematics, represents the recklessness of our salad days or at least Svarttjern’s. And therein - for me - lies the importance of it all.

“Misanthropic Path of Madness” is just a fucking banger, plain and simple. A purely thrash-driven black metal album that exudes all the danger of the Norwegian scene’s fiercest and most notorious thrash-inspired hordes: Nordjevel, Gorgoroth, Tsjuder, 1349 and Urgehal. But with “MBM”, it’s the essence of the music, yes, again with the energy, but it’s essential to my point. We only get one go around on this shit planet and we’re only young once. We can only capture the kind of energy as what you experience on this album during the span of a precious few years. Our prime! Yeah, Svarttjern were in theirs…
It’s just so organic. No bullshit either: no pretentious intro, no epic outro and no atmospheric or dramatic fluff in between; just straight, uncut riff-dominated black metal set to nasty jackhammer percussion and teeming with aggression - young, dumb, full of cum and pissed off it seems were Svarttjern. The dominating concept of course - the title is a dead giveaway - is hatred. Say it with me now “HAY-TRED”. Yes, everyone wants to hide from it when they should be harnessing it like our boys here. The end result could be something like “Code Human” with its dripping-with-aggression yet captivating arrangements/progressions or “Ancient Shadows Revelation” that soothes with a sort of lulling melodicism that naturally gives way to more strangle ‘em and fuck ‘em black metal complete with tremolo riffs, blast-beats and rotten gutturals. A brief affair at only 31 minutes in duration but with much depravity to take in and how can you resist those riffs? Fucking ear candy, man. Black metal to drink whiskey and blow lines of that good tan shit to, you know? Of course you do…

Pure fucking hatred and utter disregard for decency - a crime! - a greasy, bloody, filthy fucking album is “Misanthropic Path of Madness” and the Svarttjern horde have only dialed up the level of dynamics over the years. The energy of albums like their most recent “Shame Is Just a Word” LP, for instance, is still vicious just not quite as organic. But the thrash-dominant approach to the craft? Stronger than ever. The new wave of black metal’s most genuine band is Svarttjern. Each one of their albums an exploration of all the excrement that makes us human. But like if Jeff Becerra wrote a black metal album…

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Review by JD on March 20, 2009.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words... Black Metal like this must be so damned wordy it needs its own volumes. Svarttjern is on the rise from the brimstone flames of Hades and now wants is all to sacrifice your daughters for them. Ahhh, I love it!!

Without once seeming the least bit corny or anything, this band thunders out of the speakers and is out to damn your very soul. Not for the faint of heart, they create a spirit of blood stained contempt and demonesque anger that other bands can only hope to get close to. I see the new breed of Black Metal here... and it's clearly upon us.

Needing a little tweaking here and there in the production department has not diluted the power that Svarttjern has. The great music perfectly comes across and beckons you to come under its blackened leather wings so it can bore you to the thrones of the Darkness Christ himself... to sit on his left hand, to hear his tales of misery and pain firsthand.

Svarttjern are cut out of the same desolately cold block of stone as most of the True Norwegian Black Metal are, yet they are a clear step forward from that as well. They display the rawness that makes NBM so damned good, yet they hold a hell of a lot more. I look forward to their next Cd with fiendish delight, throwing my hand up with the horns to spur them on to making another opus.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 8
Atmosphere: 8.5
Production: 8
Originality: 8
Overall: 8

Rating: 8.1 out of 10