Iron Dawn

Marduk's war-themed albums, while often well thought out, have generally suffered from a lack of proper execution. Their first stab at this theme, with Panzer Division Marduk, is generally considered a classic of aggressive black metal. For me, songs such as the album titled track or "Christraping Black Metal" are certainly classics, but in general, the album has too many moments of complete and utter sterility. Legion's vocals were too bland, the mix generally suffers from a "wall of sound" syndrome, in which the cymbals of the drums blend too much into the treble of the guitar. The guitar tone lacks mids, and the riffs themselves are often incredibly repetitive.

Much later after Panzer... (and even after the album currently being reviewed) Marduk released both Frontschwein and Viktoria. These albums are much better produced and have a lot better vocal performance than Panzer…. However, they feel tired in comparison to previous releases. The energy given off from these releases generally lacks compared to anything Marduk has done before, and while they're decent enough albums, they fail to capture the adrenaline that made Marduk an amazing band.

Where Marduk fired the arrow and hit the bullseye in terms of war-themed releases was this little 3 track release called Iron Dawn, which might just be my favorite Marduk album (certainly tied with Rom 5:12, and could be debatably better). In three tracks, Marduk sets its sights on sonically delivering the chaotic brutality of war, and executes to such a degree of perfection that you can't help but listen to the EP on repeat. It is amazing as much as it is haunting.

First off, everything about the album packaging and cover is perfect. The picture of a massive Panzer tank is imprinted in a muddled black, as if it has been left under the rubble of war and had significant damage. The inner booklet features lyrics, but two of the songs are printed in a smeared ink that is impossible to read. The third track’s lyrics are just barely legible. This imagery sinks into the listener, as if they have just received the debris of a massive battle. Holding this album feels like you're holding an artifact of war.

When you start the album, you are instantly bombarded with a sample of a siren, and immediately thrown into the tyranny of chaotic warfare. In this moment, Marduk truly realizes the artistic expression they merely attempted on Panzer.... Samples of artillery, sirens, guns, bombs, are all perfectly infused into their trademark treble picking and blastbeats. Mortuus' powerful and expressive vocals lay into the groundwork of the sound, but also dynamically move throughout the song in a way Legion could never do.

When the four minutes of chaos delivered by the first track is over, you are left shell shocked, only to be launched into the second track. This song moves incredibly similar to the previous one, but begins as if you are already in the heart of war. It fits perfectly into the overall structure of the album. The distant firings of guns and bombs start the song off, and out of nowhere the guitars and drums come in with a powerful punch. The song does a good job opening itself to more open moments that give the listener a break from constant blast beats, but these are just long enough to take a brief breath.

When the third track comes in, the listener may be exhausted, but Marduk is seemingly aware of that. This track begins by bringing the listener right into the heart of a war-torn Berlin, with the distant sound of a German singer played in the background of gunfire and bombardment. Unlike the other tracks, this one moves slower, and has the only readable lyrics on the entire album. Mortuus lyrically paints a visceral picture of the heart of World War Two, and while his vocal dynamicism is incredible, his phrasing of the lyrics is also great, extending out his cries for perfect lengths of time at perfect points in time. His performance on this song makes it incredibly engaging.

They end the EP after the third track, and although it's relatively short, it feels practically perfect in length. These tracks, in combination, take you through the brutality of war unlike any band has ever been able to recreate, and leaves the listener in shock and awe.

Marduk are one of those bands that everyone knows of in the black metal scene, but always seem to be compared to Mayhem. I suppose it's because they both come from the same era, their names begin with M and have 6 letters. The patches of their logos tend to both be on many metalheads jackets or vests. For so long I along with others have always considered Marduk to be the lesser of the 2 bands. Since 2004's 'Plague Angel' I have been slowly turning the other cheek. Morgan is the Euronymous, the Infernus of Marduk, in which the guitarist calls the shots, decides the band members and runs the show. I must add that all 3 were founding members so they deserved that right. I must add that they wrote the lion's share of material as well.

I believe that Morgan's addition of Funeral Mist's vocalist Mortuus (Daniel Rosten) has been an essential and vital decision in their elevation to excellence today. While former vocalist Legion took the band out of obscurity with excellent releases such as 'Heaven Shall Burn...', 'Panzer Division Marduk' and the criminally underrated 'World Funeral'. Those are great releases. But somehow, people still didn't put them in a higher league. I feel that Mortuus' addition changed that. He provided a more feral, intense, deeper voice to the music. He sounds tortured, pained and most important of all genuine. It sounds like it's coming from deep inside his black heart. Outside of Mortuus, Morgan's songwriting has matured and grown more diverse since the 90's. They are one of those few black metal bands that have gotten better through the years. They aged well. Unlike Mayhem which since their Dead, Euronymous and early Maniac, Blasphemer years have gotten weirder and shittier since.

So 7 years into the Morgan, Mortuus & Devo "era" lineup we get our first EP (Iron Dawn) and it covers a familiar theme, WW2 and German warfare ala 'Panzer Division Marduk ' 12 years ago. Morgan (as many other metal musicians) always had a fascination with WW2 and to be honest, it makes for great metal themes and imagery. We get 3 songs from perhaps a future full LP and the songs are laced with WW2 sound effects ranging from rolling tanks, sky diving war planes, machine gun fire, soldiers screaming "fire!", the whole bit. The first song 'Warschau 2: Headhunter Halfmoon' brings up the theme on the cover of their last live LP 'Warschau'. Burnt down buildings, ash and rubble. Some great fast riffing and musicianship from everybody. Going at full speed which they excel at most, after the general slowness (for their standards) of 'Wormwood', they went back to the straightforward "fist in your face" breakneck speed of 'Panzer Division Marduk' once again here and also on the second track 'Wacht Am Khein: Drumbeats Of Death' which continues the same war sound effects in the intro and the full aural attack on the ears.

The third and last track of the EP is the slow track, but possibly the most interesting. The intro has an old "1930-40's" style radio playing some typical German music at the time of WW2 while you hear bombs and bullets in the background. I'm assuming the theme is set for a person in their house in Berlin listening to their radio, while their capital crumbles around them, as it's being surrounded by the Red Army and the Allied Forces combined in 1945. It's a slower track and it's something Marduk have been imrproving upon for the last few albums, where as before they used to be all out speed and blastbeats. They've added variety and quality to their sound and that's the main reason for their late peak. A wonderful EP, grab one if you see it somewhere. In light of the latest Morbid Angel abomination Marduk have stuck to what they do best and they don't fail. They give the fans what they want and for that WE THANK YOU!

Prolificacity is a two-way street; on the one hand, waiting two or more years for new material to surface can be worth the wait, as a case of Rush Job Syndrome is downplayed on account of the necessary time needed to cultivate and perfect new material. But on the other hand, waiting two or more years for new material to surface can be a damn-near torturous affair, especially when witnessing the band in question heading to your town over, and over, and over again on different-in-name-but-the-same-in-set-lists tours that almost causes you to check your watch in disappointment and frustration. But maybe I’m asking too much from the groups I like.

This case in point works with this here Marduk act, who finally unleash three new songs after an almost two-year recording hiatus, so let’s see if the Norsecorers have the capacity to placate this reviewer’s antsiness…

Now granted, Marduk’s musical brand of blinding violence can go either way, despite the fact that they do plenty in three-to-four minutes of material, and more. There have been moments where the relentless monstrousness of it all is a fine and terrifying affair (“Blackwing”, “Wormwood”), while during other times where even the deathly speed can’t mask ideas that may have been better off at a mid-tempo trawl (“World Funeral”, parts of “Panzer Division Marduk”). However, with “Iron Dawn”, the former is thankfully in place, most of the time; taking the blistering fever pitch of the previous album and throwing in similarly good riffs and ideas, Morgan and crew paint as bleak a picture musically as the EP’s subject matter can muster, even better than some of the other war-themed acts out there. Remember, kiddies…war isn’t heroic, or glorious. It’s ugly, it’s bitter, it turns a man’s soul black, and Marduk, once again, shows its dark hang-ups in as concise a way as possible amidst the various smoke grenades of Swedish-to-the-bone riffs, demonic gurgles, and punishing blast beats. Now granted, this EP can’t really hope to usurp the ghoulish “Wormwood”, but what it does accomplish is take the evilness of its predecessor and temper it into an iron-cross shaped stick to the eye of the listener, coming at him/her with both machine gun barrels blazing (“Headhunter Halfmoon”, “Drumbeats of Death”) and finishing it off with slow, trudging tank treads over your sorry head (“Blood and Sunflowers”). This is, once again, a band really on its mark, and it’s a shame that I haven’t been giving them their due praise and attention as much as I should’ve while I heaped accolades on groups that, in the end, didn’t deserve them; the guitars and bass are taut and bestial, the drumming is almost incoherently violent, and the vocals are, sadly, more reigned in than they were before; the best part about having Mortuus front the group is, apart from his inhuman vocal approach, his ability to sound disconnected from the music, hovering over it all like a God-crazed specter, but for “Iron Dawn”, his screams match the music almost perfectly, which makes for a nice listen, but not as unearthly as he’d been in the past. Also, the fact that this is only 3 songs can leave the listener a bit cold in its lack of longevity and closure; if they’d been able to flesh this out into a real full-length album, no doubt it would be something far tastier than this mere sampling of black metal jerky.

In the end, “Iron Dawn” can act as a fine distraction, utilizing the group’s now-perfected sense of abhorrent chaos to give you a quick death punch to the throat and run off back into the forest. Let’s hope that, in the months to come, even more Swedecore will come storming panzer-like down the streets of all us unsuspecting, neutral metal folk…just aim the guns the other way, fellas.