Warthur
Nocturno Culto sings "Infertile foggy renderings/Failure" on the opening Weakling Avenger, which ironically is a pretty good four-word review of this album. After the preceding Ravishing Grimness at least managed to wallow in a reasonably interesting and distinctive aspect of Darkthrone's back catalogue, Plaguewielder sees the band just playing in a 100% straight-ahead no-frills no-thrills black metal style.
And whilst previous sparse albums from the group such as Transilvanian Hunger were archetypal examples of this genre, Plaguewielder is more stereotypical; to be blunt, this is Darkthrone by numbers, offering nothing which is surprising or fresh and failing to measure up to the band's own heritage. Most competent black metal wannabes would be able to muster an album of this quality on a good day, but we should really expect more from top-tier bands like Darkthrone.