Marduk - Iron Dawn

Marduk - Iron Dawn

Marduk is a one of the oldest black metal bands to come out of Sweden. Anyone who has been through their discography knows that Marduk is one of the most brutal black metal bands ever to hit the scene. They were known for their killer blast beats and speed and pace of their music as well as the World War II themes in their music and there wasn’t a band that could come close to these guys. This was during the era where Legion took care of the vocals, but when he left, everything just turned a little weird. The music had to change to suit Marduk’s new vocalist, and this was probably the first time when Marduk started to go downhill and the worst thing is that things didn’t get any better. Out of Marduk’s entire discography, their last album Wormwood had to be the weirdest of them all, the vocals and musical structure was abrasive but kept together nicely. But now, they have just turned so weird.

If people though that Wormwood was a little weirder than everything else they have put out onto the scene you haven’t heard this ep yet. Literally everything about Marduk has just gotten so weird and things changed quite a lot since Wormwood. As much as fans hate for me to say it but it was for the worse, not for the better. But I guess line up changes are unavoidable so I commend them for trying to hold things together but the fact is that it doesn’t make their music any better. I think the weirdest part of their new sound is definitely the vocals, I don’t understand why anyone (and I mean anyone) would try and sing like this. Just imagine a 90 year old black metal vocalist trying to rap his lyrics, the number of people who would say “oh, I caaaan’t image that”, well you don’t have to, because it’s right here in this album. I think that the vocals have literally killed their sound beyond repair. It has made everything else in their music not worth listening to because it is that bad. I feel sort of sorry for the rest of the band members though because all of their hard work is being blocked by terrible vocals.

For some reason, the music is terribly loose now because before, their albums were technical masterpieces. It seems that they have tried to go way too fast and too hard than they can handle. As a result of this, it seems like the whole infrastructure of their music has just collapsed in on itself, just leaving this pile of rubble. I honestly think that there were absolutely no beats that were in time on this whole 3 track ep, from the drumming to the guitar work…nothing, not even in the dead slow parts.

But, like every veteran band out there, they still have kept some of their key traits. The first one to mention is obviously the blast beats. Thank god the blast beats are still here because if they weren’t you know something is terribly wrong with these guys. The drumming is still going at 100kmph but even they have problems that kind of wreck the music. The first problem or change for the worse they have is the tone of the drums. The drumming back in Panzer Division Marduk were killer because of the speed and tone. Now the speed is still there but the tone isn’t, it just seems like it doesn’t have the same impact as before. The second thing is that the drumming isn’t consistent. Now I’m not exactly sure if this was an attempt to try and get some variety going throughout their music or what, but I think it just wrecks the whole purpose and feeling of the blast beats which defeats the purpose of them in the first place.  Well at least its fast, isn’t it?

Its releases like this that makes people not want to listen to bands any longer. Yeah I think Marduk has had a tremendous run creating some of the most brutal black metal money could buy and some memories of some of the best black metal I’ve ever heard. Now I’m not making any predictions that are set in stone but I just can’t see them gaining a larger fan base if they keep making music like this. Their music is loose and untidy and all the components of their music have just gone belly up, this is not something I want to hear. Although they are heading downhill fast, they still have the World War II themes and their music is still fairly brutal, so there is a vision of old Marduk which is contained in this 3 track ep. I recommend the track Warschau 2: Headhunter Halfmoon because it will show you what I mean about their music changing. Although this isn’t the worst thing in the world, it’s definitely not the best thing in the world either. I give Marduk’s Iron Dawn an 11/20. 

Marduk - Panzer Division Marduk

Marduk - Panzer Division Marduk

Panzer Division Marduk is Marduk’s sixth studio album and it is considered to be one of the albums that were in Marduk’s glory days. Released in 1999, at the time there was not many bands around then that could match the pace of Marduk and they opened up a whole new world of black metal which is  beyond extreme. Everything is fairly balanced and the instruments are insanely tight and technical.

The first thing to hit you about this album is the overwhelming barrage sounds that resinate with so much force that you might fall out of your seat. Yep, this is what many people consider to be the real Marduk. The sheer tightness and speed is definitely the main highlights in this album. Awesome blast beats that rip your ear drums to shreds, guitar riffs that actually match the pace of the music and vocals that don’t sound like shrieks of despair but sounds like, well… words.  There is one work that really summarises what this album is all about, “extreme”. When it comes to black metal, this is as extreme as you can make it and it still has evidence of song structure and planning. It seems that they have put a lot of thought into their music because everything fits in musically and even lyrically, and what better way to support such extreme music with some extreme “war” lyrics.

After the shock of hearing this album for the first time, you being to pick up the finer details about the album and begin to realise there is much more to this album than just speed and brutality. The main thing to realise is that even though they are incredibly technical and speedy with their music. They have in no way thrown melody out the window, in fact they seemed to embrace it and have really incorporated it into their sound very well. Even though they have successfully created an insanely fast album it’s not their primary aim, I think they have chosen to deliver their extreme sense in many other different directions than just the music. Unlike other bands, their brutality is not only skin deep they have successfully made an album that still has the basic traits of black metal. The main thing is that this album still sounds quite dark and a somewhat sinister feeling behind it. This really fits with the back drop and judging from the album cover and titles, without even looking at the lyrics I can tell that it’s about war and because of the religious implications as well I’m guessing it’s from the realms of world war two.

The last thing to mention about this is that even though everything about this album is pointing at war, hate and anti-Semitism they have chosen to use a high quality recording rather than poor recording to create an illusion of darkness and a raw atmosphere. Many other bands do this but Marduk has a totally different approach to the music. Other bands tend to try and recreate all the death and despair which is usually accompanied with world war two within their music, rather than doing this Marduk have done the opposite. The music feels a lot more energized and a lot more projected, it’s almost like they want you to feel like you are actually in the warzone experiencing bullets whizzing past you and mortar shells falling next to you but at the same time still having a black metal atmosphere. By replacing the raw element with a more sinister feeling has still managed to keep the album sounding dark but lets them tinker with different styles. I think they have made the right choice with this.  They have also backed all this up with actual sounds of war, this is evident at the beginning of some of the tracks.

From start to finish this album is 99% energetic brutality with the 1% being its small traces of melody. As soon as the first track “Baptism By Fire” opens you aren’t automatically introduced with a wall of black metal but by the sounds of primitive fighter planes dropping bombs in a warzone, then the music hits you. That track is a great way to introduce what this album is all about and what you can expect. Also once the opening track has finished, the music doesn’t get any slower in anyway. They have really tried to keep the same pace throughout the entire album rather than just one or two songs. Although each song sounds similar to the last one, they have made very minute alterations which change the entire feeling without compromising the energy of the song and because this album is only eight tracks long, it doesn’t seem to get boring at all.

Overall Panzer Division Marduk is one of the best black metal releases out there to date and I don’t expect anything out there today or the near future that will beat Marduk at their own game which is a combination of brutality and melodies. Some bands like Infernal War and Tsjuder might come close in terms of brutality but they don’t usually incorporate melodies very much into their sound. This is a great album because it one of the few black metal albums that I have heard where the intended mood is fast and energetic  but they have recorded it in high quality which got rid of the raw feeling. This is great because they seem to get their messages across far easier, and the fact that this album was recorded in 1999 when bands were still experimenting with how raw sounding they can get make this feat even more amazing.

I don’t think there are any imperfections when it comes to music in general, the only thing is that the listener should note that it might sound highly repetitive at times. But at least they only made this album eight tracks long rather than dragging it for eleven or more. I would highly recommend this album to anyone who likes extreme metal and above all black metal fans who are into the brutal stuff. This album is definitely at the upper end of the scale when it comes to sheer brutality. Furthermore, for people who are wondering what to listen to, just put the CD in the player and just hit play. Everything seems to be evenly balanced when it comes to the songs also there is none of those dead slow tracks that some of the other Marduk albums feature. Everything is highly energetic you can count on it, that being said, people who like the rawer and darker side of black metal should keep away from this.  Overall Panzer Division Marduk is one of Marduk’s greatest albums and I give it a 19/20.

Marduk - Wormwood

Marduk - Wormwood

Wormwood is Marduk’s  11^th studio album and is of the black metal genre (some may consider this Brutal Black or Pure/Raw Black Metal). This album was released in October 2009 by Regain Records. This is the latest stuff from Swedish Black Metal band Marduk and it’s a mixture between super fast and super slow black metal.

Firstly this album’s tempo fluctuates between very fast and very slow many times. You have fast songs such as Whorecrown and This Fleshy Void,  you have the slow songs such as Funeral Dawn and To Redirect Perdition and finally you have the songs that like to have both such as the opening song No Where, No-One, Nothing and  also Into Utter Madness. This is a good thing about this album because it is never boring unlike some other bands that try too hard to be brutal all the time or the ones that are too slow all the time. This album has music for any kind of Black Metal fan but not so much for the atmospheric fans. The vocals are still great and still sound like classic Marduk. This album not only is brutally fast but it has some emotion to it such as the song Whorecrown. The part near the end where there is a guitar solo (kind of) that has a little atmosphere to it and sounds a little scary. To top it all off they also put some scary alien voice at the end of the song Whorecrown to have the listener leave with shivers down their spine. This Album is not something you should try to fall asleep with mainly because there are parts it where goes from 0 to 100 decibels in less than a second. The music is very tight in this album and can change mood without any notice such as in the song Phosphorous Redeemer. This is probably the best thing about this album and that it is not in monotone and therefore not boring.

This is an excellent album but some fans may be a little disappointed by this album. The main thing people will realise this that there is no song in this entire album that is all out brutal and there is nothing that compares to the song World Funeral for example. For anyone who is looking for 100% brutality you won’t find here. Sure there are tracks such as Whorecrown but even that song many not even compare to the pace of some of Marduk’s older work. They focus more on melody rather than speed on a few of their tracks which don’t exactly turn out as good as people may have hoped. Also the vocals are a bit different than their older stuff. It seems to be a little more distorted, this may be good for some listeners and bad for some. It depends what you like. Also the track Unclosing The Curse is a little odd.

Overall this album is still very good. It still has music that will send you speakers at 100mph but there are also tracks that are slower. There are 2 main moods in this album, fast and slow. I would recommend this album to anyone who likes older Marduk or Brutal, Pure/Raw black metal fans. I definitely do not recommend this to any fans of Ambient or Atmospheric Black metal fans. I also recommend the song Into Utter Madness for people who are new to this band, and the song Whorecrown to people who like Marduk’s sheer brutality. I give this album a 17/20.