Bathory - Bathory

Bathory’s early albums are revered as landmarks of the dark side of metal, paving the way for the Scandinavian black metal explosion and, later, mellowing out and adding some folk touches to pioneer so-called ‘Viking metal.’ The first three albums all followed a very similar style before Quorthon’s artistic vision expanded to epic frontiers, preferring the claustrophobic atmosphere of a dank and echoing tomb. Although this isn’t black metal in the modern sense of the term, owing far more to the grittier side of British heavy metal such as Motörhead and particularly the Satanic band Venom (though the late Quorthon denied having heard them previously), the dingy ...