Darkthrone Announce 22nd Album 'Pre-Historic Metal' — Out May 8 on Peaceville
Darkthrone have announced their 22nd studio album, Pre-Historic Metal, arriving May 8, 2026, on Peaceville Records. Today they dropped the title track — and if you expected anything other than barbaric, riff-heavy black metal from Fenriz and Nocturno Culto, you haven't been paying attention.
40 Years of Darkness
2026 marks the 40th anniversary of Darkthrone's initial formation — they started as Black Death in 1986, death metal thrashers out of Kolbotn before pivoting to the pure black metal aesthetic that made A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992) the genre benchmark it became. Twenty-two albums and four decades later, the duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto shows no signs of slowing down, reinventing, or making it easier for anyone.
Pre-Historic Metal follows It Beckons Us All (2024) — itself a raw, groove-infected slab that saw Darkthrone leaning into the heavy/doom territory they've been exploring for over a decade. This new record sounds like a deliberate tightening: fewer experiments, more riffs.
What Fenriz Says
The man himself doesn't leave much to interpretation. Fenriz on the album's title and direction:
"Prehistoric is a loose term. I just figure it's our VIBE, our take on things and it's more a statement that we use old style to create something new."
On what the album actually sounds like:
"It means that we are metal. With very loud guitars. 'Frightfully barbaric but not without finesse', I call it. We collaborated in the studio more than ever, who's playing what is still in a purple haze, but last but not least it was a sort of hardening of the arteries — we decided to tighten the tourniquet and do 8 effective songs brimming with riffs instead of the airy plodding we so much enjoy usually."
"Hardening of the arteries" and "tighten the tourniquet" — Darkthrone as a band that is actively becoming more focused rather than drifting. That's an interesting signal from a duo that has spent the last fifteen years expanding in every direction from crust to heavy metal to doom.
Production and Recording
Pre-Historic Metal was recorded at Chaka Khan Studios in Oslo — production handled by Ole Øvstedal, Silje Høgevold, and Mads Luis. Mastering by Jack Control at Enormous Door and Maor Appelbaum Mastering. The organic, in-your-face sound Darkthrone has been building toward since the Circle the Wagons-era production philosophy continues here.
The cover features Fenriz wielding a gardening fork. Because of course it does.
The Tracklist
They Found One Of My Graves (05:17)
Pre-Historic Metal (04:19)
Siberian Thaw (06:45)
Deeply Rooted (04:58)
The Dry Wells Of Hell (06:12)
So I Marched To The Sunken Empire (03:21)
Eat Eat Eat Your Pride (04:51)
Eon 4 (05:24)
Eight songs. Total runtime just over 41 minutes. No fat, no filler, no concept — just Darkthrone doing what Darkthrone does. The tracklist leans toward longer, slower cuts alongside shorter blasts, suggesting the full album has range within its constraint.
The Bigger Picture
Darkthrone's late-career output has been one of metal's more quietly impressive stories. After the black metal canonization of the early 90s — Transilvanian Hunger, Under a Funeral Moon, A Blaze in the Northern Sky — most assumed the band would coast on legacy. Instead, they've spent the last two decades evolving on their own terms: into crust punk territory with F.O.A.D. (2007), into raw heavy metal with Circle the Wagons (2010), into a kind of ancient doom-heavy-metal hybrid with recent records. Pre-Historic Metal represents a consolidation of that hard-won identity rather than another pivot.
The title track delivers: mid-paced, riff-forward, Fenriz's vocal howl set back in the mix over Nocturno Culto's guitar attack. It sounds like a band that has nothing left to prove and is playing music because the riffs demand to be heard. That's always been Darkthrone at their best.
Pre-Order
Pre-orders for Pre-Historic Metal are live now through darkthrone.lnk.to/Pre_Historic_Metal. Peaceville will have vinyl, CD, and boxset options. Physical formats through the usual suspects.
