heavy-metal-darkness: Thou Shalt Suffer |Into The Woods Of Belial |Darkness Shall Rise Productions (Reissue, Remastered)

Thursday, March 19, 2026

Thou Shalt Suffer |Into The Woods Of Belial |Darkness Shall Rise Productions (Reissue, Remastered)

Release Date March 13^th, 2026
Format 2CD/3LP/2MC
Genre Death Metal
Country Norway

Before they were the symphonic gods of the Norwegian scene, the masterminds behind Emperor were busy rotting in the underground with Thou Shalt Suffer. Formed in 1991 by Samoth and Ihsahn, this wasn't the high-brow, orchestral black metal that made them famous. This was filthy, primitive death metal. While the duo eventually pivoted to the frozen landscapes of black metal, Thou Shalt Suffer remains the raw, skeletal foundation of their legacy. This collection, "Into The Woods Of Belial", gathers every scrap of their early desecrations, including material from their pre-history as Embryonic and Xerasia.

Forget the keyboards and the royal posturing. This is old-school death metal that smells like a fresh grave. Tracks like "Into The Woods Of Belial" and "I Seek The Path Of Obscurity" are disgusting in the best way possible. The riffs are thick and suffocating, dragging you through the mud before exploding into these chaotic, Carcass-inspired blasts. Ihsahn sounds like he’s coughing up dirt, trading his later high-pitched shrieks for a guttural, cavernous growl that fits this grime perfectly. It’s got that classic early 90s atmosphere, raw, honest, and completely lethal.

What really kills here is the sheer darkness. You can hear the transition from the primitive thud of the Embryonic demo "The Land Of The Lost Souls" into the more complex, morbid arrangements of the main Thou Shalt Suffer era. "The Goat Of A Thousand Young" has this unsettling vibe that proves these guys were always lightyears ahead of their peers, even when they were just kids. It’s not about technical wankery; it’s about creating a suffocating wall of noise that actually has some soul behind it.

Darkness Shall Rise Productions really outdid themselves with this package. Having the Xerasia and Embryonic rehearsals next to the 7" tracks gives you the full, bloody history of how these legends started. The remastering by Patrick W. Engel keeps the punch and the filth without making it sound like a modern, plastic production. It’s loud, it’s heavy, and it sounds like it’s coming for your throat. If you want to know where the real Norwegian darkness began, this is the only document that matters.

Score: 9.0