Stereogum skriver om Darkthrone 's album Total Death:
"While Panzerfaust feels like a Cessna in a snowstorm piloted by a pair of drunks, Total Death feels like a Gulfstream 200 cruising into a patch of mild turbulence. The production here is a good deal cleaner, and the mix fuller, than anything on the four albums that preceded it — and that's not an unwelcome stylistic shift, either, but all these factors combine to achieve a general air of ambivalence and sluggishness, qualities not evident on any prior Darkthrone release.
Still, these are not criticisms of Total Death, exactly, but Total Death in relation to the body of work surrounding it (and especially preceding it). Many fans claim Total Death is the first "inessential" Darkthrone album, but that's simply not true: It follows Soulside Journey in that regard. Many claim Total Death marks the beginning of a mid-career lull, but even that seems inaccurate: It's a logical stylistic evolution from Panzerfaust, followed by a three-year hiatus — an absence exactly half as long as the band's time in the public eye to that point. If anything, Total Death is the final chapter of Darkthrone, Part 1, not the first chapter of Darkthrone, Part 2 (it's sort of a neat bookend to Soulside Journey in some ways). And while Total Death may not be a heavyweight champion, it still knows how to kick some ass. If you're sitting around at night, drinking or bullshitting or whatever, and you throw it on the stereo, before you know it, your fist will be pumping. Your blood, too."