Bathory – The Return of the Darkness and Evil – 1985

The Return is the second album by legendary Swedish Black Metal pioneers Bathory. It’s a violent musical odyssey and feels in many ways like a more refined and well-produced record than the debut. Unfortunately, it becomes very repetitive, and it doesn’t feel like the music matches the vocals; it just becomes chaotic. Now, this is probably intentional as it somewhat fits the nature of the style, but it’s not something that resonates with my ears. It just becomes deafening, and it’s not something I can listen to for very long. There are chromatic scales ad nauseam, and regardless of how much early Bathory meant to the Black Metal scene, I simply can’t reconcile with the monotony in the performance. There’s very little room for dynamics, and it’s really only a few bars in “Sadist” that reflect positively on the rating of The Return.