Marduk is a band with a notorious reputation for making the most aggresively fast black metal out there. They are one of the few respectable BM bands that DONT spend their career making albums with songs about the north, the frost or the fucking moon.
Marduk are not your typical Black metal band. Marduk mean business when it comes to playing their style of aggresive fast black metal.
With "Plague angel", The Marduk Panzer death ride resumes , minus vocalist "Legion" who has been replaced by Mortuus(Ex- Funeral Mist).
The production is decent enough for me. Considering I listen to the most obscure of grindcore bands with the poorest production one can imagine, I really am not that fussy about production of an album as long as the band make up for it in musicmanship.
Soundwise...The guitar tone is razor sharp and dominate in the mix. Drums are slightly low in the mix, sounding muffled but still gets the job done in the end. The bass is heard clearly and adds that extra depth to the music. And the vocals?Well Id like to use an entire paragraph to describe the vocals...
Shredding through Mortuus' throat, his screams are raspy, in a robust way ,not some weak ass sewer pipe cackles and croaks you hear on most "TR00 GR1M KVLT" wankery. Mortuus has delivered the best BM vocals Ive heard in a long time. His vocals are the definite highlight of "plague angel". A testimony to this would be the absolutely insane 12 second scream at around 1:07 on the song "Warschau". I was so impressed with his vocals on this album , that Im now looking out for his works in Funeral Mist.
Mortuus is the perfect replacement for Legion, a vocalist who I think did a great job with Marduk. Onto the album now.
The album begins with a dark haunting melody, like the beginning of a classic horror movie and within a few seconds, even before the atmosphere sets in, youll find yourself in the middle of a blazing warzone.
Musicwise, This is the sonic equivalent of World War 3...So utterly devastating, I simply cannot find the right words to describe the carnage that is contained on this small plastic disc thats spinning away on my cd drive as I write this review. Most of tracks on the album are blitzkriegs of hyperfast riffs and blast beats that shred your ears to little ribbons over and over again. As a small example : Listen to "Blutrache" at 2:10 and you will understand what Im saying.
But this isnt like "Panzer Division Marduk" because there are variations in the album from time to time. For example : "Deathmarch", is an atmospheric track composed of war trumpets and drums, haunting choir vocals and evil chanting that really sets the mood for war. Another track to watch out for is "Seven Angels, Seven trumpets" - A slow but heavy number with samples of a church choir thrown in for extra atmosphere.
In the end, all I can say is there isnt one weak spot on the album. The songs are monolithic in terms of speed, atmosphere and aggression. With "Plague angel", Marduk redefine black metal and have tightened their grip on the black metal sceptre.
Sample:
youtube.com/watch?v=ldLcK_HTlMY&list=RDldLcK_HTlMY&start_radio=1
