The fatal flaw in this kind of primitive black metal revisionism is that Hellhammer didn’t actually WANT to sound like diseased rats rooting around in flimsy garbage cans, that’s just the best they could do at the time. So attempting to sound just like them in tech-savvy 2005, well, that’s reverse engineering at it’s weirdest. But when you consider the culprits involved (Charnel Valley is a  stupor-group of metal journalists!), it all makes a skewed sorta sense. In essence, “Dark Archives” is a respectful tribute to the ‘old gods’ of black metal (Hellhammer, Bathory, Venom on a very bad day) that’s as authentically awful as the stuff it’s inspired by, right down to the hissy non-production, incessant cymbal-bleed and out-of-tune guitar. Of course, I LOVED this stuff in 1984 – we all did – but is a faithful recreation of Tom Warrior’s death-belch really worth more than a couple smirky spins?

Probably not. But it’s pretty fuckin’ outrageous the first couple times. Bonus points for the anti-social 8th grader pencil drawing cover and the following awesome song title: “The Beast of Six Thousand Bones”.