[suspected] cover art:



pretty excited for this. Frontschwein is one of their best and this seems like it's gonna be a continuation of the war theme. thoughts? hopes? witty third question?

I’d be keen to hear Marduk try somethiing a bit different, but I know that lots of people like their tenacious devotion to speed. I’ll give it a spin for sure.

I hope that they go for some stuff like Plague Angel or the 96-99 era, the fast songs are very enjoyable, but the slower ones are a bit boring to me, I miss the Panzer Division times, but the formula after Plague Angel has been an almost 50/50 between fast and slow songs.

I think Marduk peaked with the slower and more experiment stuff found on Rom 5:12 and Wormwood. So I prefer it when they let the songs breathe a little and also gives room for Mortuus to experiment with his vocals. I thought Serpent Sermon was fine but I can't stand listening through all of Frontschwein (even though it has a few killer tracks). The new one can go either way, I just hope they choose the direction I prefer. If they go only for the fast approach I'm out...

After seeing them live last year, I got into this band again after basically ignoring them completely since the Panzer Division album. So I find myself surprisingly looking forward to this. The last album was really good!

Frontschwein was pretty tight, I kind of like how they married bolt throwers grinding midpace with their patented furious black metal.

Looking foward to it.

Never really cared for Marduk, but I was definitely wondering why they were headlining that last US tour and not Incantation. They were tight and put on a good show, but Incantation absolutely tore the place apart and there was simply no comparison.

Rom 5:12 is the best modern Marduk album IMO. It has variety,great songs and atmosphere.

Moreover, I am pretty tired with the World Ward esque stuff.

They used Bret "The Hitman" Hart for the album cover?

I was just about to say how much I liked that artwork, and now i will NEVER un-see The Hitman (mixed with Bad Reputation)

Serpent Sermon is one of my favorite black metal releases of all time, but I definitely need to give their slower stuff more of a try. Excited to see what direction this is going to take.

excited, as always, i expect a solid 8 record. marduk been on a streak since Arioch joined and i look forward to it!

Definitely agree! Rom 5:12 is very dark. I think it came out around the same time that Mortuus realized Maranatha for Funeral Mist; both very dark and atmospheric albums. So it seems he was extra inspired at that time.

3rd. Rom 5:12 is my favorite Marduk album. That album along with Peste Noire's La Chaise-Dyable are my two absolute favorite modern black metal albums.

Bring it! Saw them last year live they destroyed it!

Can't wait for this! They were one of the first black metal bands I got into (somewhere around World Funeral and Plague Angel) and seeing them live was a dream come true.

I'm definitely a bigger Incantation fan than a Marduk one, though like I said, they won me over again (after the 90s I mean) at the Toronto show, which was also a part of that tour. But I can safely say that Marduk, here at least, were a much bigger draw. I'd estimate that a good 3/4 of the audience showed up just for them. Ah well.....

Posting this here so as not to start another dumpster fire of a thread.

https://www.altpress.com/news/entry/mar ... propaganda

I kinda don't get this one. It's literally just a Swedish newspaper saying "we found their names in a database!" without providing any evidence. It seems like if they were buying fliers, stickers, and propaganda shit and passing them out somebody would have noticed. Seems like a big ol' nothing burger to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are repercussions anyway.

Quote from that article: "Among other propaganda, Rostén reportedly received books about National Socialism"

Books. Imagine that. He received BOOKS

yeah i guess it was a minor story in sweden last year. nothing happened, and then metalsucks picked it up and did what they do. not really buying it myself.

I never noticed it. They were really struggling to make a "scoop".

I'm on the side of the band's mid-paced stuff being a strong draw for me. Part of the attraction of Rom 5:12, Wormwood, and Serpent Sermon were these type of tracks. Frontschwein was something I didn't like that much on first listen but it warmed up later. If these guys tour I do want to see them live.

I have yet to really dive into their discography. I have listened to Panzer Division Marduk, which was okay, and Frontschwein, which I really liked.
I love the WW2 theme, and it goes fantastically with their slightly more brutal form of 2nd wave black metal.

I admit that Panzer has some great tracks but it sounds dry and souless in comparison to their older stuff. I have never understood the love to this album when Marduk has released such a great albums like Those of the Unlight and Opus Nocture which are far darker and have a great atmosphere. If you want brutality just listen to Heaven Shall Burn, what a beast of a record.

I even enjoy the debut, which is quite old school black metal with some death metal and even punk influences, Dark Endless is a fucking great record.

I hope you enjoy them!

I'm not all that surprised about Rosténs interest and/or involvement in national socialist politics. He was in, or helped track vocals for, Sigrblot after all. And while that band wasn't national socialist they weren't opposed to doing that split album with Absurd and Grand Belial's Key either. So he has been moving in and/or around these circles before.

I always argue that if one buys certain books, regardless of author or publisher that should be fine. It just reflects an interest, doesn't necessarily mean one supports the ideas in that book (and in Sweden there has been a witch hunt for people buying certain kinds of books). Seems like they also ordered stickers promoting the Nordic Resistance Movement and that should be a sure sign that they at least looks favourably upon that organization. And they are openly national socialist.

There's been new developments in all this. Apparently the magazine repsorting this (ETC) changed their article based on when they realized the band was on tour when one of the orders were supposedly made. Instead of claiming it came from an IP address connected to Fredrik Widigs home they now claim it came from Switzerland where the band happened to play at that time. This is fishy indeed.

Fryshuset, where the festival Stockholm Slaughter was to be held, banned both Marduk and Taake based on these articles basically jeopardizing the whole festival by taking away the two main acts. I'm glad to hear they have been able to move the whole arrangement to a new place. Thus the festival will take place with the announced line-up

Edit:

The original article said this on the 4 April:



Basically saying that; the orders are made with the band members own names to the addresses where they are registered at. The IP-adresses also points towards their registered addresses.

The edited article says this:



Which basically means that; the order was made during the bands tour in Pratteln Switzerland. The order was made from an ip-number that can be traced to the same town.

Witch hunt which should not be tolerated. Marduk (and Taake) are not political bands. It starts and ends there.

Sure, tell this to the sensationalist press and Antifa idiots.

so yeah, it's confirmed bullshit then

Hypothetically, if these band members were to privately hold national socialist views but never acted on them or committed a violent crime, is that really worth all this trouble? We are moving dangerously close to The Minority Report trying to prosecute people for thoughts alone.

Anyway, hail the great Marduk, I absolutely cannot wait for this.

I've heard of this happening from various sources; thank you for providing direct quotes. Do you also happen to have screenshots or other evidence of similar nature? I'm so fucking sick of this circus and the bar is certainly being raised - editing a debunked report to keep fueling the fire sets a worrisome precedent.



Very well put. And I share the sentiment on the new album, of course - it's Marduk, so it's a blind purchase from me. There have been ups and downs but I can say that this band never managed to truly disappoint me so far, and considering how long they've been around now, it's a pretty damn remarkable achievement.

I can't understand why is there so much hate for Panzer Division Marduk. Many metal bands since the very 80's always flirted with warfare themes and even tried to incorporate that war-like sounds into their music and imagery.
Black metal had already reached high levels of extremity with albums like INRI or fallen angel of doom, but I think Marduk did a nice job capturing the essence of war and putting into music form in that album: Machine gun-like drumming (that constant repetitive blasting, I'm pretty sure that's roughly how it feels like to be in the middle of a battle), chaotic riffing, pounding bass, exasperating atmosphere, aggressive vocals. You could say it should be a well received album within the metal niche.

I love it.

I have a screen shot from the article as it is today. The first article was reached by using the archive.org website that captures copies of websites from however long ago you're interested in going back in time. I uploaded the screen shots below (I hope the links work - if not tell me and I'll try another provider):

https://imgur.com/a/F5yHH

This whole thing actually had me checking out Frontschwein again which I didn't like that much when it came out. It's actually better than I first though, a lot better even. It's really just a couple of weaker track but otherwise its pretty much top notch!



Movements with much power will often retreat to antics such as this, regardless of religion, politics etc. In Sweden the left wing has been quite strong and the magazine ETC is quite respected, although viewed as a heavily left leaning mag (they don't hide that fact). The growing anti-immigration media does the same though. So it seems to be a nature of the beast type of thing.



I made the relevant parts bold. You ask a question and answer it in the same post. It's undynamic and boring because of the constant repetitive nature of it. I don't agree that there is a lot of hate for the album though. I see many people loving it and quite a few listing it as the best Marduk album actually.

I am a big fan of Marduk and I consider the article in ETC to be pretty sad news. It's not about the books, which someone here mentioned, it's about the propaganda stickers. NMR is a fanatic organisation with cohorts that have been sentenced for actual terror bombings:

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/7rx2w/nazister-doms-till-fangelse-for-bombdaden-i-goteborg

These guys are not your regular skinheads and many of them have done time in jail. And why order so many stickers if you aren't intending to spread the message? NMR are nazis and antisemites and they are proud of it.

I know that ETC made a typo about the IP-adresses in their first article but they are a serious newspaper (admittedly leftwing) and the conspiracy theories about them making this stuff up is laughable. They have publisher that can be taken to court for defamation. However I agree that the typo is a serious error since it damages the credibility in the report and fuels the conspiracy theorists and apologists.

That being said; I consider Marduk to be Morgan's band and I won't stop listening to them just because of this (hell I'm even gonna try to see them when they are playing together with Taake at the replacement concert for Stockholm Slaughter) but to me it's not very far fetched that Mortuus and Widigs sympathises with extremists which is quite depressing.

As I said in my original post I wasn't that surprised because of some of the band affiliations I have seen with Rostén (Mortuus). But then came this ETC debacle with them changing the article and not even make a note that they have changed it (still haven't when I checked it today). That to me seems very unprofessional and not worthy a serious publication. And calling it a typo seems to me to take the change a little bit light. The meat of the story they published was wrong. It wasn't like it was a word misspelled. The actual explanation of the evidence was wrong. That seems fishy to me.

I totally agree with you here; they should have made a note about the error in the original article. Typo may also have been a bad way of describing it (even though I actually think that is what happened) because as you say it does sound fishy. Which is exactly my point. ETC wouldn't just pull this story out of their hat without some type of evidence. That's why the error is so serious – it fuels doubt.

And to get back on topic; I thought Frontschwein was awesome and I can't wait to hear Viktoria. Marduk has always been at their best when dealing with historical themes.

I got a copy of Viktoria this week (don't ask!) and it's pretty much like Frontschein, fast aggressive, straight to the point 'panzer style Marduk.' 33 minutes and doesn't fuck about. Thesre's a couple of slow tracks but for the most part its pummelling blast beats and catchy as usual. I hope next album they go more diverse like Rom 5:12 or Wormwood.

On this Nazi issue, who gives a fuck? Morgan's granddad was German and fought in WWII so he has an interest in Nazi Germany like millions of other people do. I have over 30 books on the 3rd Reich, does that make a Nazi? No, I'm just interested in a fascinating period of history. Even if they had Nazi sympathies, that's their choice to do so like they can be Christian or Islamic fundamentalists if they choose. Lemmy was open about his interest in the 3rd Reich and amassed a huge collection of Nazi memorabilia, didn't seem to remember any fuss there!

Cheers!
Yes, I've been listening to them this past week, and it's good stuff! Dark Endless does indeed have some nasty death metal riffs, some of the slower ones reminded me of the first Darkthrone album. One surprising thing was the heavy Bathory inspiration. The beginning of "Departure from the Mortals" sounds like it could be on Blood Fire Death.

So far, Those of the Unlight is my favourite. It's just evil and epic!