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Right from the opening prologue of "Whispering Fields" you know the debut from Germany's Graven is going to be an exercise in grim, old school sinning. Perhaps the most obvious of all the Darkthrone-worship albums, Perished And Forgotten is the very essence of evil: menacing riffs, soul-chilling vocals, pliant, battering drum work, and bitter-wilderness atmosphere, all in the name of Fenriz and the sound crafted on those classic early albums. What excites me about this is it's not a direct descendant of the genre itself but rather of one album; in every respect, from the production right down to the songs themselves, every note of this screams Under A Funeral Moon, and despite having a clearer guitar sound, this could've been the album Darkthrone released next, instead of Transilvanian Hunger.

There's a lot to like about this one, and it's surprisingly listenable for a second wave tribute, but tracks like "Of Darkness Sorrow And Hate", "When Funeral Winds Arise" and the Mayhem-touched "Storms Of Impure Blood" really evoke the misanthropic spirit that encapsulates this genre, and for that, Graven should be commended. Lovers of the perversion spewed out by Behexen, Horna, and Endstille will get a corpse-twitching kick out of this, whereas die hard Darkthrone followers might find it a little too close to home. Good for after hours, though.