Marduk has never, with the exception of the laudable Opus Nocturne, boasted of a deep mystical aura imbuing their music and has rather been known for the sonic onslaught which is their music. The present work sees a band that appears to have long settled for a style and seem content to reproduce it for the benefit of an expecting audience. That is, a very palpable pop mentality has settled in, even if the music has not completely degenerated in form. The artistic vision nonetheless has affected, as is the rule, the manifested aesthetic of the music, and will predictably continue to corrode its quality as it has been doing for the past twenty years or so.
Frontschwein 2016:
NORTH AMERICA
09/02/16 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room
09/03/16 Tampa, FL The Orpheum
09/04/16 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
09/05/16 Baltimore, MD Soundstage
09/06/16 New York, NY Gramercy Theatre
09/07/16 Boston, MA Brighton Music Hall
09/08/16 Montreal, QC L’Astral
09/09/16 Toronto, ON The Opera House
09/10/16 Columbus, OH Al Rosa Villa
09/11/16 Chicago, IL Reggie’s
09/12/16 Minneapolis, MN Triple Rock
09/13/16 Kansas City, MO The Riot Room
09/14/16 Denver, CO Marquis Theatre
09/16/16 Vancouver, BC Rickshaw Theatre
09/17/16 Seattle, WA Studio Seven
09/18/16 Portland, OR Bossanova Ballroom
09/19/16 Oakland, CA Metro Opera House
09/20/16 Las Vegas, NV LVCS
09/21/16 Los Angeles, CA Regent Theater
09/22/16 Phoenix, AZ Joe’s Grotto
09/23/16 El Paso, TX Mesa Music Hall
09/24/16 Dallas, TX Gas Monkey Bar & Grill
09/25/16 Austin, TX Dirty Dog Bar
With the metal scene as it is these days, one out of three DMU-approved bands isn’t too bad. Marduk, Immolation, Origin, and a band named Bio-Cancer will be touring Europe throughout May 2016. While Marduk is headlining, their companions in general seem to have similar levels of notoriety; I wouldn’t dwell too much on the specifics of the headlines. I’m betting European fans of Death Metal Underground’s writing will treat this as a possible opportunity to see Immolation in concert. While that’s an optimistic appraisal, the band allegedly gives their older and stronger some emphasis when live, so if you can grit your teeth through the other material it could very well be worth your while. Otherwise, you’ll have to hope there’s good beer… and that there’s plenty of beer money in your pockets.
Playing a mixture between the primitive South American black metal of Sarcofago, the unrelenting and mindlessly simplistic assault that borders on comedy of Marduk and something of its own, Deiphago’s Into the Eye of Satan is both a highlight and representation of half-cooked modern nostalgia metal. The references to the influences are pretty clear for someone to see and even though Deiphago escapes them and proposes something of their own, the sections in which we hear the older voices are two transparent. Rather than an integration of influences, we hear quotes to other composers in the midst of Deiphago’s maddened ramblings.
These raptures proper of a madman that Into the Eye of Satan exposes us to are as endearing as they are nonsensical. It makes one think of the epileptic attacks that Colombian’s Parabellum subjected the listener to. The difference is that the Latin American savant band actually produced coherent music within the wild and often disorienting music that nonetheless had a clear large-scale plan. Deiphago on the other hand attacks the listener with pure chaos, subjecting it to passages that border on noise improvisation and structures that appear to consist of haphazardly placed extreme-sounding sections. The theme here is chaos, the destruction of music and ideas themselves while the picture is not completely given up on. While not incurring in the sin of trying to become atmosphere itself nor becoming self-referential symbols, Into the Eye of Satan sadly still falls short of a year’s highlight due to what I perceive to be compositional laziness and/or lack of controlling musical notions in spite of a solid artistic vision.
The album Memento Mori from Black Metallers The Negationon July 6 (July 7 digital and North America). The first pressing comes as a limited edition (500 copies) DigiSleeve CD.
The Negation’s second full-length, Memento Mori was produced at the Hybreed Studio (Temple of Baal, Glorior Belli, Azziard), with artwork by Metastazis (Morbid Angel, Behemoth, Watain), influenced by famous acts with whom they’ve toured (Marduk, Belphegor) as well as bands such as Dark Funeral and Deathspell Omega. Enough said!
Tracklist:
Intro
The true Enemy
Sacrifice the Weak
Parasite Fall
A Prayer for the Ones I Will Have to Kill
Faith in God’s Corpse
End of Cycle
Visions of Doom
Résistance
Outro
Check out their mega-awesome nihilist and modern music in their album teaser.
An incredibly brief, foggy, quasi symphonic intro with Marduk-like vocals pronouncing some indecipherable gibberish, followed by minimalist and recklessly fast riffs could fool one into thinking this is precisely a Marduk clone. In truth, there are mid-paced sections interspersed here and there to mitigate the onslaught of the indecipherable and impetuously fast sections. This upgrades this release to a later Marduk clone. Although probably upgrade is not the most accurate descriptor here.
The best and undeniably valuable product of extremely fast, loud and unrelenting black metal has been contributed in the last few years by albums like Advent Parallax and in the veritable modern classic Godless Arrogance. Marduk, on the other hand, was always wild abandon to mindless, truly mindless, speed and minimalism for the sake of it and more importantly for the joke of it.
But while Marduk are explicitly joking about everything they write about while staying somewhat seriously offensive, Infernal Execrator manage to sound like a joke more easily acceptable among the Godflesh Apocalypse extreme metal crowd. The words Ad Infinitum Satanic Adherent themselves are more than enough warning that this should be placed besides the likes of Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz. The only difference is that Impaled Nazarene triumph in the same way that Sharknado does: by embracing the joke and being happy with it. These Singaporeans purport to be more (by calling posers out) while not being able to take themselves entirely seriously. Fans of the Marduk, Behemoth and Cannibal Corpse will find this release palatable and fashionable.
Marduk attempts to return to their past of blasting melodic war-themed ultra-simplistic black metal, evoking Panzer Division Marduk more than the mysterious album which preceded it, Opus Nocturne, which remains arguably their strong point. The band incorporates some elements of tribal-industrial hybrid rhythms, but stays on point with short riffs. Arguably this mature form of Marduk offers more variation in tonal construction and riff form than ever before, but its tendency to use similar song structures and nearly constant exercise-video style tempi wears down the power of this release.
Like later Vader albums, the attempt to make the album fully intense creates a wallpaper effect where all of the intensity flows together because lack of internal variation deprives it of the context to make a truly great impact; in addition, riffs use a very similar vocabulary of rhythm and pattern, which makes songs hard to distinguish. Where Marduk excels is in, while avoiding the standard MTV form most metal bands use, orchestrating a rise of intensity that explodes into a clever use of melody and tempo change to produce a dramatic impression. The theatrical side of this band creates moments of impressive songwriting throughout the album.
Black metal vocals of the type that approach a chant more than a howl decorate this album and while much of listener focus is anticipated to be directed at these, they stand back when the guitars lay forth a mix between sawing rhythm and gentle lifts of melody, much like early Dawn albums or their militant spin-off Niden Div. 187. Frontschwein shows Marduk at their best in recent memory, and in modern warfare they have found a new inspiration, but the whimsy and mysterious nature-mysticism of Opus Nocturne was closer to black metal than what we might call this, ‘melodic war metal,’ and as a result like most rock projects it fades into repetition that becomes distinguished only by vocals and lyrics. Nonetheless good material appears throughout this album.
Tracklist
Frontschwein
The Blond Beast
Afrika
Wartheland
Rope Of Regret
Between The Wolf-Packs
Nebelwerfer
Falaise: Cauldron Of Blood
Doomsday Elite
503
Thousand-Fold Death
Warschau III: Necropolis (Mediabook bonus track, in cooperation with ARDITI)
Tour
EUROPEAN HEADLINER tour with Belphegor (special guest) and two support acts
19.02.2015 HOL Rotterdam / Baroeg
20.02.2015 HOL Eindhoven / Effenaar
21.02.2015 HOL Sneek / Het Bolwerk
22.02.2015 BEL Vosselaar / Biebob
23.02.2015 UK Plymouth / The Hub
24.02.2015 UK Manchester / Academy 3
25.02.2015 UK Glasgow / Audio
26.02.2015 UK London / Underworld
27.02.2015 FR Paris / Divan du Monde
28.02.2015 CH Monthey / Pont Rouge
01.03.2015 FR Toulouse / Dynamo
03.03.2015 SP Madrid / Caracol
04.03.2015 SP Barcelona / Apolo
06.03.2015 ITA Turin / Cafe Liber
07.03.2015 ITA Brescia / Circolo Colony
08.03.2015 SLO Nova Gorica / Mostovna
HATEFEST 2015 with Six Feet Under, Vader and Hate
02.04.2015 DE – Leipzig, Hellraiser
03.04.2015 AT – Wien, Gasometer
04.04.2015 CH – Pratteln, Z7
05.04.2015 DE – Essen, Weststadthalle
06.04.2015 DE – Saarbrücken, Garage
07.04.2015 DE – Lindau, Club Vaudeville
08.04.2015 DE – Ludwigsburg, Rockfabrik
09.04.2015 DE – Hamburg, Markthalle
10.04.2015 DE – Geiselwind, Musichall
11.04.2015 DE – München, Backstage
12.04.2015 DE – Berlin, Postbahnhof
Third-wave black metal band Marduk and legendary brutal Swedish death metal band Grave will be joining Death Wolf and Valkyrja on a European tour. Marduk, perhaps most famous for its fast melodic ode to the unknown Opus Nocturne, will headline all dates on the “Panzer Division Marduk 2013” tour.
For those who experienced early death metal, Grave is well-known for 1991’s Into the Grave, a dark and primitive Swedish death metal journey that straddled the line between dark death metal, brutal death metal and primal grindcore. Among metalheads of the day, not owning a copy of this seminal release was like not owning shoes.
This European tour sees these bands join forces for raw energy through intense speed and solemn but vicious riff attack, which is how each has distinguished itself in the past. European metal brothers and sisters are lucky to experience this unrestrained assault of sonic power.
