The deep, black hole of sound.

Hate Them (Moonfog) Darkthrone His name is Fenriz. He works at the post office, sorting mail. His colleagues have never seen him without headphones on, but he doesn't speak to them anyway. He doesn't like people very much, and in person, he alternates between excruciating politeness and biting sarcasm, always with an underlying strain of intensity.

His motto is, "Whoever's heard the most music wins." He claims that he's heard more music than anyone he's ever met. If his house were on fire and he could only save one thing, it would be a record by a Swedish hardcore band from the 80s called Puke. He's a heavy drinker, is fond of quoting Aimee Mann and prefers to spend his free time alone, in the forest.

"That's what I do instead of playing the guitar and becoming a prog-rock dude," he jokes.

As one-half of Norway's legendary outfit Darkthrone, he's also one of the leading pioneers of the modern black metal genre.

When the first Darkthrone demos began appearing in the late 80s, its members were still in their teens, churning out technical death metal that was mostly indistinguishable from all the other death metal of that era. The outcome of these demos can be heard on their first album, the unremarkable Soulside Journey.

It was on their second full-length album, 1991's A Blaze in the Northern Sky, that Darkthrone established its sound and image. Despite the amount of ink spilled on their more notorious Norwegian counterparts, Mayhem and Burzum?whose members would go on to make international headlines for their violent behavior?Darkthrone's Blaze is generally credited for igniting the modern black metal movement. It's also one of the most terrifying records of human anguish extant, a brutal sonic attack that sounds every bit as frightening today as it did 12 years ago.

In musical terms, A Blaze in the Northern Sky was a rebellion against death metal, which was beginning to look like a dead end. Blaze ushered in a new era in the extreme metal underground, disdaining technical expertise and a polished sound in favor of bleak, atmospheric expressionism in its rawest form.

Meanwhile, Darkthrone's members stood on the side as the churches burned, the Satanic and neo-fascistic manifestos were issued and the suicides and murders destroyed some of the most prominent figures in the Norwegian scene. They shied away from the sensationalistic aspects that gave rise to a short-lived media circus around black metal in the 90s, opting to remain indoors and refine their sound.

As accomplished musicians, the challenge was to play as badly as possible, hearkening back to the more primitive aspects of the old-school black metal that drummer-lyricist Fenriz and guitarist-vocalist Nocturno Culto grew up with. Blaze was their call to arms?and their follow-up albums put the battle on the field. Using a four-track studio to achieve their trademark "necrohell" sound, Darkthrone engineered a stripped-down, low-fi esthetic. They gave very few interviews, refused to play live and instructed their record label not to promote their albums.

This aura of obscurity has no doubt been amplified by their nihilistic worldview, which seems less a posture than a genuine lifestyle. When asked if he has a favorite Darkthrone album, Fenriz replies that he only has a least favorite album: 1996's Total Death. "That's one of the ways we're not selling our band. When you ask for a favorite, we give you the non-favorite. Self-loathing is very important here."

Transilvanian Hunger is the most extreme example of Darkthrone's rigorous necrohell minimalism. Fenriz beats the hell out of his kit, laying down a steady foundation that only changes a few times on the entire album. The two guitarists travel up and down the neck, sawing away at the same riffs over and over again as though deeply engulfed in some private bloodmatch. All but one of the songs on the album are in Norwegian, and half were penned by Count Grishnackh of Burzum, who had recently been imprisoned for the murder of Mayhem guitarist Euronymous. Recorded in the winter months of 1993, Transilvanian Hunger emits cold, caustic seclusion. It served as a statement of not only where Darkthrone had been, but where they were heading.

For die-hard fans, Panzerfaust seems to be the favored Darkthrone album, an exercise in total sensory derangement and sonic insanity. With its memorable, Celtic Frost-inspired riffs on songs like "The Hordes of Nebulah" and Nocturno Culto's raw screams of pain and terror, Panzerfaust is no-fi garage metal as interpreted by intoxicated teenage demons. The album has more in common with the paintings of Edvard Munch than the black metal of Immortal or Emperor?such is the visceral effect of this stark, beautiful garbage.

Subsequent releases offer fleeting glimpses of their former glory, as often happens when a band leaves the garage for the studio. The rawness once cherished by fans is sometimes lost to the polishing process as members grow older, burn out and end up parodying their former sound. But Darkthrone never sold out, because Darkthrone never had anything to sell.

"Darkthrone has never tried to be original," says Fenriz, "but just tried to pay homage to Bathory and Celtic Frost and Hellhammer? No, the point is, Darkthrone is just a tiny little fucking hole, and you can't put a lot into that before it starts sounding like something else or someone else. The lyrics have been progressing, but the music has been more or less regressive, or stayed the same."

The band's latest release, Hate Them (Moonfog), suggests that Darkthrone is back in black after eight years of mediocrity. With song titles like "Divided We Stand," "Fucked Up and Ready to Die" and "Striving for a Piece of Lucifer," Hate Them distinguishes itself from other releases with its cryptic lyrics, punk-based drumming and lush, bluesy riffs. It's probably the band's most accessible recording to date, and could be alternately considered pure black metal and kickass rock 'n' roll.

When asked if the release of Hate Them would be accompanied by any live shows, Fenriz scoffs: "Yeah, when pigs fly. When Emperor takes off their sunglasses for photo shoots. No, we're not going to? I don't even want to think about it because I hate playing my instruments."

This year also marks the band's 17th anniversary, prompting Darkthrone's first record label, Peaceville, to release remastered editions of the first four CDs featuring exclusive multimedia enhanced interviews as a bonus. Will this lead to new fans? A revived interest in these semi-obscure, legendary sons of northern evil?

Fenriz scoffs again, insisting that Darkthrone is nothing more than the project of two dedicated music enthusiasts. "I haven't called myself a musician for ages? I used to be a musician. I listened to Rush and bought cymbals because of the cymbals that the guy had when he played on the first Dream Theater album.

"But those were the days, my friend."