Marduk "Viktoria" Album Review

Sweden’s Marduk is back with their follow up to 2015's Frontschwein. Known for their military focused lyrics and unrelenting musicianship, Marduk has brought forth Viktoria to the world. The band consists of original guitarist Morgan “Evil” Hakansson, longtime guitarist “Devo” Andersson, and vocalist “Mortuus” Rosten. Drummer Fredrik Widigs who played on Frontschwein returns to the band's ranks for yet another story of tanks, death, and World War 2. Across nine tracks, Marduk shows off why they’re one of the most renowned black metal bands today.

Viktoria kicks off with the lead single, “Werwolf.” Sirens ablaze and a ripping black metal riff and double bass from Widigs. The opening track sounds like something more along the lines with earlier Marduk than anything they've released in the past 10 years. The main riff doesn't let up and neither does the double bass. The song is simple but powerful, showing off the power that Marduk have. Probably the most interesting part is the chorus part which features almost haunting choir-like vocals chanting the word “werewolf." You can hear right off the bat, without a doubt, this is a return to form for Marduk.



The next few songs, “June 44” and the second single from the album, “Equestrian Bloodlust” are very similar. “Equestrian Bloodlust” is another short few minute song that refuses to let up on the speed once it gets going. “June 44” on the other hand does have a bit more melody during its chorus. “Tiger I” stands out as a much more melodic track than you normally hear from Marduk. Lyrically the song focuses around the terror of the Panzer VI Tiger I German tank---nothing surprising to anyone familiar with Marduk. The melody though is almost haunting, telling to terror this tank brought in World War II. The pacing, while much slower than anything else on the album, is perfect for headbanging and chanting along. Many of the verses end with a commanding yell instead of Mortuus’ regular vocals, sounding like a German general instead of a black metal vocalist.

The last stand out track is the title track, which actually just had a music video released for it. The eponymous song mixes a lot of the elements from earlier songs. The main riffs are vicious but add a little bit more melodic flair to them instead of staying plainly consistent. The chorus and bridge on the other hand, slow down a lot more to a pace much closer to that of “Tiger I”. The fast-slow-fast sort of formula that Marduk use in “Vickoria” works incredibly well to make the song unpredictable and created incredible contrast in the instrumentals.

Marduk returns to form, Viktoria is what the fans have been asking for. More military/World War-based black metal from a band renowned for it. Viktoria is much more in line with that of Panzer Division Marduk than the past few albums they've released. A true black metal monster. While short, spanning a total of 33 minutes, this is an unrelenting slab of music. Marduk show even after 28 years, they’re still on top.

Interview with Lucifer

Hey there, how are you today?

-Thank you, great! Sitting here in the Swedish countryside, enjoying the view!

Congratulations on the signing to Century Media Records, I can't express how excited I am to hear “Lucifer II”. How will this album differ from the first release?

-Thank you, yes we are thrilled to work with Century Media now. Great label, very sweet people! By some magic the second album turned out how Lucifer was originally intended musically when I first formed the band’s concept in my head, a way deeper dig through the record crates of the 70s. Less Hocus Pocus, more Hard Rock. Lucifer II is more diverse and opens some new doors. It is more catchy, I think!

Bigger label, bigger tours maybe, what's your guys plans with the first bit of new music and leading up to the release of the album?

-After releasing our first video for “California Son” a few days ago, we are now working on the next video to be released very soon. We just played our first few shows in the new line-up in Sweden, Denmark and Germany and it was awesome! We’re now looking forward to all the upcoming festival gigs this summer, especially Hellfest, Rockpalast and Psycho Las Vegas.

A few years ago you came to North America supporting High on Fire and Pallbearer, are you guys looking at coming back finally?

-Yes, aside from playing an exclusive show this year at Psycho Las Vegas, we are currently looking into touring the US again in 2019. Having spent three years of my life in California, I consider the US a second home and really can’t wait to take Lucifer back on the road there.


Why “Lucifer II”? Is there going to be on overlying concept connecting the first album with this one?
-I planned to number the albums before Lucifer I came out already. Lucifer II is simultaneously
also symbolic for a second incarnation of the band, I suppose.

Last but not least, is there anything you'd like to share with your fans who have been waiting ever so patiently for this announcement?

-I know the gap between these two albums was quite long and I hope the wait was worthwhile! I do think so! We are already talking about the third album and have a good chunk of material laying around. Expect Lucifer III to hopefully see the light of day way sooner this time, very likely around September 2019.

Thank you very much for you time, I'm excited to hear “Lucifer II” on July 6th.

-Thank you, the pleasure was mine! Hope you dig it!

Aborted "Bathos" Review

 

        Internationally renowned Death Metallers Aborted have been all over releasing new music regularly. Between 2016s “Terminal Redux” which was followed a few months later by “Retrogore” which at this point is a highly praised album, Aborted have had no issues keeping fans happy. Now that we are in 2017, of course it’s time for some new Aborted and this time around they released the 2 track EP “Bathos” onto the world.

        First thing to mention is the artwork, Aborted always have some of the best artwork, ranging from the weird and obscene to the goriest, or in the case of “Bathos”, the occult. The cover sees a house with hooded figures peering out from behind it and in the front, a pentagram with dead bodies, the most obvious of them being impelled in the centre. This artwork is classy for Death Metal, this is the kind of art I want on a shirt because it’s going to shock people, but they’ll also do a double or triple take to finally realise what the hell is going on.

        The music of “Bathos”, as I mentioned before, the EP is only 2 songs. The first of which is “Bathos” itself. The song treads lightly between Technical Death Metal, Grindcore and has hints of Deathcore elements mixed in. It can’t quite decide where it wants to go with the intro itself sounding a lot like Suicide Silence and many parts and vocal patterns being reminiscent of the same, while at the same time there are more than enough portions that combine the sound with Death-Grind as made famous by some other bands like Cattle Decapitation. The other piece of music on the album “Fallacious Crescendo” goes much more to the roots of what Aborted is known for, being a heavy slab of Death-Grind much like a lot of their previous work.

        All in all, great release. Aborted tried something a little different with the two songs to make them distinctive from each other. One taking cues from the more recent popular bands in the Metal subgenres while the other pays homage to what got Aborted so well known. “Bathos” is out July 7 through Century Media Records and if you’re a fan of the band, old or new, you should probably pick it up for some hints to where the next album might be going.

Dark Funeral "Where Shadows Forever Reign" Review

                It’s 2016 and words hurt, people need safe spaces because someone talking about rape, terrorism or Satanism “triggers” them. Well, Satanism shouldn’t really be in this list but for whatever reason the idea freaks people out, not that Dark Funeral seem to care one bit. Dark Funeral are back and it’s been too long, releasing through Century Media Records, “Where Shadows Forever Reign” is bringing Black Metal back to the forefront of the Metal Scene now that Abbath’s release has lost its steam. Let’s get into some evil sounding tunes and “trigger” some kids who shouldn’t even be allowed on the internet, or maybe we will make them smarten up and toughen up with some good ol’ Black Metal.

                Opening with the track “Unchain My Soul” I constantly find the intro to this song interesting, the opening riff and the chorus riff are practically the same with the difference being that in the intro guitarists Lord Ahriman and Chaq Mol are playing sustained notes over Dominator’s blast beats which is slightly out of place, while during the chorus they are playing at a much higher tempo to keep pace with the blasts. While this song doesn’t have too much of a change to its sound throughout, it’s a great opening track to get the blood pumping and get you ready for the destructive power known as Dark Funeral.

                “Beast Above Man” is a couple tracks down and contains a consistent tempo to the first two songs, the speed is intense and Heljamadr sounds evil at every point in this album. The fact that i can actually generally understand Heljamadr makes his vocals all that more intense, hearing the Satanic lyrics, especially in this song, like “I’ll turn your crosses upside down and burn your temple to the ground” and others such as eating the victims flesh and slitting their wrists, all only in the first couple minutes of the song. While this album is full of evil, it is Black Metal after all, this is just the beginning.

                Next, let’s talk about the two singles that were released, “Nail Them To The Cross” which is by far the strongest song on this album, as well as the closing and title track “Where Shadows Forever Reign”. The former see’s the band at it’s more destructive, outside of the high speeds we are use to, the chorus slows down immensely to create a much more evil sound in contrast while you hear Heljamadr’s vocals drop to a crazy low as he chants out “Nail them to the cross”. This is fist pumped, head banging Black Metal that leads perfectly into the end of the album. The slow down once the verse kicks in, in “Where Shadows Forever Reign” this song has a lot of changes to its tempo, while none are very drastic the song does speed up and slow down quite a bit fairly often. The only strange choice about this song I really noticed was when it cuts back into the chorus, sort of out of nowhere, maybe an extra bar of instrumental would have made it seem less strange, but what do I know?

                In the end, this is a band that’s been around for two decades, a band that knows the Black Metal scene and is ready to rule it. Dark Funeral consistently release top tier Black Metal and even with that in mind, this is probably their strongest release to date. It’s faster, the lyrics are more evil and contain far more imagery, the entire band has raised the bar for any Black Metal release this year, so it’s your turn bands, who will compete with Dark Funeral? Can anyone compete with them? “Where Shadows Forever Reign” will go down as the best of the best in 21st century Black Metal, guess it only makes sense it’s a release on Century Media then.

85/100

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Tour review: The Decibel Magazine Tour with Abbath, High On Fire, Skeletonwitch and Tribulation in Toronto at The Opera House April 10th, 2016

                On Sunday, April 10^th, 2016 on a snowy day in Toronto, the Decibel Magazine Tour descended upon our beloved venue, The Opera House. Abbath, High on Fire, Skeletonwitch and Tribulation made up the extreme metal tour of the year bringing a couple different firsts to North America, Skeletonwitch on tour with their new vocalist Adam Clemens and Abbath on tour for the first time.

At roughly 7pm, with a line of us standing in the snow the doors finally opened and with very little time to waste, Tribulation took the stage shortly after. Opening with “Strange Gateways Beckon” this band is just as mysterious as they are fantastic, with guitarist Jonathon Hultan very light on his feet, dancing and making his way around the stage seamlessly. While the show continued the band continued to keep the audience captivated in each and every line they had to shout out. Eventually, very quickly and after only a few songs, “Holy Liberation” began and cranked through in what felt like no time at all and Tribulation were done. The audience was mesmerized and even though they were the opening band tonight, they packed in the venue and made plenty of new fans already. No one was ready to see them leave, except those of us who knew what was next.

                After a very short transition, Skeletonwitch took the stage with new vocalist Adam Clemens, known best for his work with Wolvhammer, opening with “I Am of Death (Hell Hath Arrived)” off the bands most recent album “Serpents Unleashed”. Instantly, most previous fans of the band were drawn to the new incarnation of the band, while not having quite the vocal range previous vocalist Chance Garnette had, Clemens made up for with sheer destructive Black Metal force. The band played a lot of songs off of “Serpents Unleashed” with a couple songs from “Beyond the Permafrost” and “Forever Abomination” mixed in, but it was the new songs that made everything special, you want to hear what the band will be bringing soon. “Well of Despair” has been out for a month now, but the song live is even more destructive, the fast paced Blackened Death sound Skeletonwitch are known for got the crowd headbanging like some psychos. “Black Waters” was the other new song shown off and personally sounded a bit more melodic and chaotic instrumentally than anything previously done by the band. Not knowing the song made it a bit hard to follow, but that’s fairly common with any song you don’t know, but all in all it’s a song to look forward to hearing a studio version of to really take in the madness. Eventually the band had to come to a close with “Beneath Dead Leaves” and let the pit open one last time for Skeletonwitch before their final goodbyes.

                Due to an interview taking place at the time, I was only able to catch the first couple songs from High on Fire, but the interview was worth it, don’t worry that will be up very soon. Opening with “The Black Plot,” I actually enjoyed the band more this time than when I saw them on tour with Pallbearer. Maybe it was just an off day for the band last time, but the new songs like “The Black Plot” seemed more rehearsed and much tighter than before. The band brings a traditional Heavy Metal destructive sound that a lot of people can enjoy, although being the slightly out of place band on a bill filled mostly with Black Metal. The other song I caught before having the leave the main area was “Carcosa” which, although a good song and it may have just been my excitement, seemed to take forever. High on Fire has a lot of energy tonight and it was a shame I had to leave, but just you wait for the interview.

                My interview finished just as High On Fire were closing out, meaning when i got back to the main area, the crowd was just thinning out a bit for the smokers to take a quick break. Sneaking back up close, Abbath’s introduction began and needless to say, the crowd went mad. After an epic introduction, the sound of marching feet began and out came the band, everyone except Abbath himself, but soon enough, just before the vocals of “To War!” started, the man of the hour made his way in front of Toronto. All eyes were on the frontman as the band cranked out songs, old and new, including “Winter Bane” from the first Abbath album, “Warriors” from the band I and Immortal’s “Nebular Ravens Winter”. When the band began “Ashes of the Damned” it was hard not to watch the frontman, if you know Abbath, you know his signature Black Metal grunt, and this song is full of them. While Black Metal is meant to sound evil, Abbath is hard to sake to seriously, constantly making faces and striking poses for photos, you can’t not be happy when seeing this band live. If you watch drummer Creature, you might feel uneasy though, dawning a demon mask, whoever is behind the set knows what’s going on. Creature will stare straight forward for 99% of the show, barely needing to look at what part of the set his sticks are hitting and if you watch it too long, you’ll start to get that “are you human?” feeling. When the band broke into the Immortal track “Tyrants” you knew shit was going down, the pit opened to its largest size and the crowd went wild, hair was everywhere and people were being thrown around like there was no tomorrow. In the songs slow section, roughly half way through, Abbath began to make poses and try to get the crowd as loud as he possibly could, and it worked, before breaking back into the headbanging madness. “Count the Dead” put a break between two more Immortal songs, “One by One” and a song that personally, I was overly excited to finally see, “Solarfall.” Abbath took every chance he got to take to the very front of the stage during “Solarfall” and again, got the blood pumping. “Root of the Mountain” followed with “All Shall Fall” afterwards. The band left the stage and after a ton of cheering and chanting Abbath retook the stage, asking “so you want some more?” and caused absolute chaos one last time with “In My Kingdom Cold,” saying goodnight, promising the bands return and leaving the stage.

Tribulation Performance: 85/100

Skeletonwitch Performance: 95/100

High On Fire Performance: 80/100

Abbath Performance: 95/100

Overall Experience: 90/100

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Taake with Young and In the Way and Vattnet Viskar at Hard Luck Bar, Toronto, ON, Canada

                February 23^rd, 2016. A crowd of long haired trouble makers descend on the Hard Luck Bar in downtown Toronto for a night they will never forget as tonight is finally Taake’s first show ever in Toronto. A small bar up two flights of stairs into a small room filled with merch, tables, chairs and restless metalheads and luckily with our hotel being right across the road, as shitty of a hotel as it was, we didn’t have to withstand the brutal Canadian cold to long.

                After being let in and waiting about half an hour, Vattnet Viskar hit the stage. This band really caught my attention with their last album “Settler” and after missing them on their last tour with 1349, it was about time I had seen them. This band had all sorts of energy and their vocalist, Nicholas Thornbury, sounds even more Black Metal live than he does on record. Playing a set of songs both new and old, like “Yearn” and “Colony” from the newest album and “Apex” from their first album Vattnet Viskar really got the crowd ready for what is next to come, but man did they blow me away.

                Young and In the Way took the stage fairly quickly after Vattnet Viskar and what came next i really did not expect. Opening with “Betrayed By Light” which sounded to me a lot like Darkthrone, I was super excited to see what came next. How do I explain everything past this point? Well, Vocalist Kable Lyall began to remind me a lot of Niklas Kvarforth from the Swedish band Shining, which was one part awesome as I haven’t seen Shining yet and figure this is getting me ready for whenever they make their way to Toronto, but also one part terrifying. At some point during their third or fourth songs “We Are Nothing” or “Final Dose” I witnessed Lyall hang from the PA and watching it just waiting for the support to let go and it to fall on someone, I personally get kneed in the chest and I watched him boot a fan in the front row in the chest straight backwards into the pit that had opened up. Right, okay, this band is extreme and I'm standing back when Lyall is near me but past that, this is a lot of fun! After some more songs like “Oceans of Eternal Depression,” “Self Inflicted” and “Loved and Unwanted” we got to the end of the night with “Be My Blood.” Remember how i said he reminded me of Kvarforth? I was ready for him to slit is own writs or something here. Alas, nothing happened and everyone walked away leaving a lot of the crowd in awe and somewhat confused.

                We have to wait an hour and a bit after the end of Young and In the Way for various reasons, mainly being the pretty boys of Taake needed to finish their makeup. Finally after an insane wait time, the lights go down, the opening begins and out comes each and every member of Taake’s live band, except Hoest himself. Instruments start and out he comes followed by a roar from the crowd, this is why we were all here and this is what we were waiting for. Blasting through every note and being insanely friendly with the crowd Taake play a slew of songs from their 20+ year career including “Nordbundet,” “Orm” and “Myr” and eventually getting to the songs I know the best, as they cranked out the first three parts of “Hordalands Doedskvad.” GG Allen got a very fast paced tribute as Kable Lyall joined Taake on stage for a cover of “Die When You Die” and sooner than anyone would have liked, Taake closed their set with “Nattesid Ser Porten Vid, Part I.”

                All in all, everyone there seemed incredibly pleased with the night, there were fans of every band there and the musicians I had the chance to speak to afterwards were incredibly kind and seemed very thankful to everyone for coming out on a Tuesday night. No one was disappointed, especially not me, every band killed it and that’s all we can ask for as fans.

Vattnet Viskar performance 90/100

Young and In the Way performance 85/100

Taake performance 95/100

Overall experience 95/100