Stereogum skriver om Darkthrone 's album The Cult is Alive:
"In retrospect, The Cult Is Alive is a good album, but it falls short of the albums Darkthrone have produced since — which use similar themes and influences to greater ends — as well as the post-Total Death transitional albums that precede it, which forced Culto to grow as a songwriter and guitarist while Fenriz was sidelined due to burnout and depression.
The Cult Is Alive's virtues are its focus — which the band would later put to better use — its raw power, Culto's incredible guitar solos, and the mostly comprehensible lyrics, which by this point have frequently become a commentary on the thing Fenriz knows best: the state of heavy metal and Fenriz's dissatisfaction with such. The album's most quoted line comes from "Too Old Too Cold," when Culto snarls, "You call your metal black? It's just spastic, lame, and weak.""