A German poseur with a stick up his ass calling himself Memminger Huette emailed us a review he had written of Marduk‘s comical Panzer Division Marduk. I at first assumed his review was a parody of how mainstream rock publications write about metal but that soon proved not to be the case in the brief email exchange that followed between him and me. His emails are the ones quoted after the jump.

I wrote this today. See what you think. I wish to submit it for inclusion on your site.

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I sat down in my local coffee shop and queued up Marduk’s Panzer Division Marduk on my smart phone, intending to write my review in time for the album’s finish. An ambitious task; by the time it had taken me to open my Chromebook and create the document for this article, the first song was already over.

There are many works of metal that owe their quality to dynamism. Famously, this is not one of those works. More than its brief playing time, Panzer Division Marduk is nothing if not consistent. This consistency is the key to its success as metal music.

Panzer Division Marduk idolises hatred and strips away all impurities in the consuming fire. What is remarkable is that all other characteristics of human experience are absent. Some of the most highly praised metal albums feature uncharacteristic inclusions; a result of the same kind of motivation that led Motley Crue to include at least one power ballad in every album after Shout at the Devil. Panzer Division Marduk is a simple, yet brave and uncompromising vision for a metal work.

What you are left with in this work is the purest essence of hatred. Hatred like the fire of Heraclitus that sweeps the land and results in a new order of matter; suicidal hatred like a middle eastern death cult that overthrows the artifice and empties the desert for a winner-takes-all battle of allegiances and ideas. Hatred; an opposition to something so extreme that all attempts to understand one’s adversary are vapourised and the only logical action is obliteration.

Two or three important riffs are cycled through every song. These fastly strummed riffs flow fast over the constant barrage of blast beats – one of only two drumming modes in the album. Where there are no blast beats, there is probably no drumming. Each riff is pieced end to end with itself in a way that suggests hatred towards itself and all foreign ground that the riff passes over. Interludes and denouements exist, but both are always perfunctory and give you at best a few breaths to reload before the next riffual assault. Successful riffs are given a key change to suggest drama or culmination. An insane barking Swede provides mostly incomprehensible commentary as if delivering a battlefield sermon from the pulpit of a Panzer tank.

Taken individually, the riffs peak within themselves and repeat enough to create a jagged feeling of assault before the riff switches and a new mode of attack is engaged. The songs change mood subtly, never veering from that essence of hatred. A song’s character is imparted partially through the wartime samples of tanks, gunfire, marches, artillery assaults and Stuka attacks. Throughout the whole album, the listening texture turns into a wash, as if watching a relaxed tide come in.

Put this album on during your commute home. Let the inward hatred purify you. Rebuild among the baking ground and the opportunistic void.

Hi Memmringer,

As a review, it does not meet our standards. The music is not described or actively judged when compared to the best of the past. You are merely stating how you like the lyrical themes. The DLA already has a negative review of Panzer Division Marduk too: https://www.deathmetal.org/bands/marduk/marduk-panzer_division_marduk/

Stating that listening to black ‘n’ roll makes you feel like a bad ass due to the lyrics is far too feel good, pozzed out, self-reaffirmation new age hippie shit for Death Metal Underground. I do like your take on Panzer Division Marduk having the same knuckle-dragging appeal as Pantera though. That would be a sick article if you’re willing to rewrite this and bang it out and maybe throw in some barbs at Sepultura “Roots Bloody Roots” and slam. If you said that Marduk grasped the emotions behind tons of classic metal, ie wanting to kill ’em all and show no mercy, but failed miserably in their execution as music when compared to Slayer and Bolt Thrower, and that idiots buy it anyway as they’re idiots, that would be an amazing article.

Best regards,
Daniel Maarat

You’re a fagg0t.

Best regards,
Memmringer

You’re the one sucking c0cks on a Saturday morning in the bathroom of a hipster coffee shop in a gay neighborhood.

Get AIDS and die,
Daniel Maarat

Dear Daniel,

You’d fit in well at amerika.org, where they blog mainly about how they don’t integrate well with ethnic minorities and homos. I understand the editor there also accepts contributions based on whether or not they agree with his calcified worldview. Perhaps you don’t know what what it’s like to live free and unhindered, from coffee shop to coffee shop whilst listening to Chopin etudes.

Listen to PDM again.

Liebe Gruesse
Memminger

https://www.deathmetal.org/news/music-is-not-subjective/ you pretentious hun. Sitting in a cafe masturbating to a bunch of skinny Swedes using the vile deeds of your ignoble ancestors as theme to a punk rock soundtrack to Wayne’s World party times for crustfunds and dumbasses doesn’t sound particularly cultured. I hope a pack of Russians had their way with your grandmother back in the day.

Fuck off forever you filthy kraut,
Daniel Maarat

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