Rom 5:12 - Marduk

With their tenth full lenght album 'Rom 5:12' swedish black metal veterans Marduk continue their move away from earlier militaristic themes to the death-obsessed medieval aesthetic evident in their previous 2004 album 'Plague Angel'. The songs are an entertaining mixture of fast tremelo-riffing and frequent sections of relentless mid-paced guitars, and its a very consistent listen, with engaging song-progression and lots of atmosphere, helped along by the rasped, half-gargled vocals of singer Mortuus. The production is quite big without being too clean, with the drums sitting quite prominently in the mix but the guitars still sounding powerful, and ...  Read the complete review

I'm not an enormous black metal fan, I loved some of the older stuff (Venom etc) but the genre tends to be filled with tracks which are a bit long and tedious, quality Swedish band Marduk have black metal down to a tee though and are able to combine fast and furious with melody with sludgey doom like riffs whilst still booming out the growling vocals and vicious lyrics which are expected in the genre. Rom 5:12 is the band's 10th album and although I haven't checked out all of their discography, I'd say it's ny on one of their best albums if not their best. "Through the Belly of Damnation" is as an enjoyable song as the album has to offer and the most ...  Read the complete review