5 years is the longest pause between albums that MARDUK have ever taken. Admittedly, the world has had different issues to be involved with throughout that point, however even taking international pandemics under consideration, the Swedes’ extended silence had a sure eeriness to it, as in the event that they had been quietly constructing in the direction of one thing definitively explosive and devastating.

Admittedly, the band’s 33-year existence has offered black steel with a few of its most vicious and plain data. From the flawless evisceration of 1999’s “Panzer Division Marduk”, to the militant bludgeonings of “Frontschwein” (2015) and “Viktoria” (2018),&nbsp MARDUK have at all times ravaged with conviction and extra depth than most. Returning after a prolonged hiatus, founder / guitarist Morgan Håkansson has a lot to reside as much as on his band’s fifteenth album, nevertheless it swiftly turns into obvious that a lot of the final 5 years have been spent whipping issues into form for a renewed assault on the world.

“Memento Mori” begins because it means go on: at an insane pace, and dripping with hateful, harmful intent. The opening title observe is as livid as something MARDUK have launched since “Panzer…”, however with over 20 years of progress fleshing that album’s brittle, blasting core out into one thing deeper and darker. “Coronary heart of the Funeral” and “Blood of the Funeral” observe. The previous, a extra measured eruption of vitriol; the latter, one other psychotic white-out, performed at inhuman velocity. MARDUK have by no means made a report that did not sound totally pissed off, however “Memento Mori” is on one other degree. It’s a self-evident rebirth, whereby Håkansson‘s imaginative and prescient has grown in breadth and depth, whereas retaining its myopic, blasphemous essence. Earlier albums have boasted loads of slower, grimier materials like “Shovel Beats Sceptre”, however MARDUK have by no means woven their primitive, old-school ethics and their extra artistic latter-day sensibilities collectively as convincingly as this earlier than. A scything, sludgy dirge with vocalist Mortuus on significantly vile kind, it paves the best way for “Charlatan”, one other bewildering blizzard of blastbeats and spite, albeit one which momentarily morphs right into a hissing, frostbitten waltz, earlier than a closing blur of high-speed insanity seals it with a fuck-you flourish.

That is an train in nuanced terror, nevertheless it’s nonetheless terrifying. The skin-removing onslaughts proceed. “Coffin Carol” is a determined, sub-zero dash to the end; “Marching Bones” is a swaggering, punk-fueled sneak-attack with a grimy, black ‘n’ roll edge; “Yr of the Maggot” takes a dramatic pause earlier than unleashing one other tsunami of unstoppable violence; “Crimson Tree of Blood” is extra of the electrifying identical, however quicker. If nothing else may be confirmed, we will not less than assume that drummer Bloodhammer did some further press-ups throughout MARDUK‘s hiatus. It ends with the faux-industrial funeral march of “As We Are”, a useful reminder that MARDUK can chill the blood at slower tempos too.

Ultimately, these 5 years glided by in a flash. Regular, Christ-smashing service is resumed. Welcome again, legends.