Panzer Division Marduk (Panzer Division Marduk - Marduk)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	Panzer Division Marduk - Marduk
Date:	31/12/08 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sheer aggression matched by few.

Disadvantages: Far less interesting now it's all about the intensity.

Along with many of their contemporaries, notably Poland's Behemoth. Marduk's sound has veered increasingly towards a style of black metal concerned overly with heaviness and intensity at the expensive of creativity.

If you're after something fierce and heavy-handed, this is certainly an album to check out, pummelling the listener with controlled bursts of violence that don't outstay their welcome, but as is probably obvious from my lower rating of this album compared to the band's earlier offerings, it's not a style that I'm particularly fond of.

The band makes gratuitous use of war sound effects in an unconvincing bid to add the sense of atmosphere that used to come so readily, and although the guitar riffs and solos are all suitably ferocious and gripping, there's little creativity or memorability here. At an average of three to four minutes, the songs are all fairly typical and none stand out, despite some pretty funny titles like 'Christraping Black Metal' which surely can't be intended seriously.

Summary: Marduk's sixth album (1999).