Review by Felix on December 9, 2019.

I have a special relationship with this full-length, because it was my first album of a Norwegian band. Unfortunately, there are no further reasons to appreciate this record in a specific manner. Soulside Journey is stuffed with painfully meaningless death metal. Inter alia due to its then exotic status, I tried hard to become a fan of this work. But I had no chance.

Today they are dinosaurs, but back in 1991, Darkthrone were absolute beginners and did not know much about the art of writing enthralling songs. The gap between their ambitions and their abilities was greater than the distance between Oslo and Hammerfest. To be more precise, the songs start somewhere and end somewhere, but I cannot identify central ideas. Instead, it feels like listening to fragments, because the single pieces appear torn and inconsistent. Darkthrone spit on conventional song patterns and that is not bad per se. The problem is that the songs fail to create a comprehensible flow. Too much (mediocre) ideas show up, and, even worse, none of them is clearly defined. This leads to pretty obscure results, not least because of a high number of awkward breaks. "Grave with a View", to mention just one example, starts atmospheric with background chorale, but this approach remains incomplete and the following parts fail to evoke any kind of emotions.

Basically, I miss catchiness and velocity. Too many slow-moving parts occur and some of them have the potential to cause mental anguish. The longer the album goes on, the worse it gets. This is not so much a problem of the later songs. They are not better or worse than its predecessors. The annoying fact is the recognition that the entire album lacks great compositions. In view of the omnipresent mediocrity of the song material, it is almost useless to philosophize about the quality of the production. Briefly, the nasty sound cannot be dismissed as amateurish or inappropriate. It does not lack of power and creates a cold aura, no more and no less.

One may call the compositional approach "progressive". Well, I do not support progressive metal actively, but I bet that no fan of this sub-genre would use this term in connection with Soulside Journey. It would be also unfair to speak of "free jazz death metal", because Darkthrone, there is no doubt about it, try to give their material a structure. Unfortunately, they are simply not able to form the songs successfully. Whenever they perform a good part, and there are doubtlessly a few pretty decent sections, they throw it away in a matter of seconds and turn to other ideas. It is therefore no wonder that the tasteful artwork of this wonky debut remains its biggest asset.

Some pitiless smart alecks criticize the Norwegian duo for being inconsistent. I do not care about their babbling, because Darkthrone mostly deliver high quality albums. But the most important reason for my lack of interest is that I really appreciated the stylistic modifications of the band after this half-baked debut whose only very little highlight is the opener. Therefore, come out and accompany Fenriz and Nocturno Culto on their journey if you like to do so. I stay at home.

Rating: 3.8 out of 10

Review by JD on May 30, 2011.

What makes a great metal band? I have been asked that so many times in my many years of playing, writing and promoting metal in ever way possible that I could retire if the were worth a dollar a piece. I could go on and tell people, but it would take too long, and my beer is getting warm. I will just tell you about one band that I think is so damned good... and their name is Cassle.

Hailing from one of the headquarters of metal, Los Angeles California, Cassle is one of those bands that have gotten more notice now, that they are split up for so long, rather than how they did back in the early 80's. Sad to say that, because these guys are great - both now and back in the day. Even trough this is a compilation of what they did along with some well chosen live shots as well, it describes a band that had the certain ‘it’ factor.

Songs like the massive sounding 'Midnight Fantasy' to the shining yet massive 'Second Hand Eyes' shows a classic sounding band in the vein of early Saxon meeting Deep Purple and even a little like Canadian Hard Rock pioneers Triumph (one of my favorite Canadian bands ever). They take these stand up inflences and steps them up even more. Even though, by todays standards and how far Metal/Hard Rock has come in its evolution, Cassle’s music seems somewhat dated in some ways. But it still takes only one listen makes the bands music seem so very timeless in many ways. Good music always seems to do that.

Production on this compilation seems a little off in certain spots, but when you change analog for the cleaer digital... it does that. It is still recorded very good, and for any newbie metal fan, would be a good listen to hear where metal has come from- and how far it has come up to know. I love Cassle and despite the band not playing any longer - it was good to hear that sound I hear so long past.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 8
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 7.5
Originality: 8
Overall: 8.5

Rating: 8.2 out of 10