This is an odd one indeed. Basically, Sarke is a side project for Thomas Berglie (Old Man’s Child, Khold) and he handles all the instruments here. He recruited Nocturno Culto (Darkthrone) to do the vocals and together they released Vorunah in 2009 and now they’re back with Oldarhian. Although both men come from black metal backgrounds, Sarke is not a black metal band. Instead they play a mix of traditional heavy metal, Cemetary, Tiamat and new Darkthrone with some extra punk tossed in for good measure. The music is very stripped down, simplistic and not exceptionally heavy. At least for Nocturno, this material isn’t a big departure since it’s similar to Darkthrone albums like Circle the Wagons and F.O.A.D. Keeping their sound fairly consistent with the Vorunah album, Oldarhian offers more of their basic metal-punk fusion and while it has some enjoyable, rocking songs, it doesn’t completely work for me as a whole.
