Band: Marduk
Title: Iron Dawn
Label: Regain Records
Distribution: Suburban
Release date: May 27th 2011
Review: MCD

One of the oldest bands from Sweden, one of the most influential and inspirational ones in the history of Black Metal. Timeless and universal, uncompromising, never giving in, never following pathetic trends or modernistic would-be expectations at all, just transforming thoughts of war and misanthropy into muSICKal creations from the Darkest Side… Hail!
The band did write some material for the upcoming full length, which will be released via Regain at the very beginning of next year (even though I wouldn’t mind this recording coming out somewhere this year. Tomorrow? But until then, we have a couple of choices: camping in front of a specialised store to be the first one to buy the new epos / melancholically listening to any former Marduk-master piece / enjoying this in-between EP over and over again / … My preferred options deal with this EP and all former releases. And ‘former’ releases, well, actually this band is, as said before, pretty old and owner of an enormous discography, both super-interesting and of a superb quality.
Bon, the EP… Three tracks with a warlike concept, of course. Warschau II – Headhunter Halfmoon is a whirlwind-blaster, furious and hyper-sonic, yet with a remarkable difference with the past efforts, even though it has to do with the sound only: much more mechanical and industrialised than we’re used to. However, have no fear, because Marduk still are Marduk, so expect no world-shaking differences with the past. The same goes for Wacht Am Rhein – Drumbeats Of Death, which is a pure blitzkrieg from the Darkest Side. In contradiction to the opening track, this one decelerates (just twice, yet it does), yet this piece too comes with that certain apocalyptic-industrial approach. Prochorovka – Blood And Sunflowers is the most unhappy piece on Iron Dawn. Almost every former recording consists of at least one slower track, and in this EP’s case it’s the final song. This track too, mysteriously, comes with a slightly grimly-mechanical sound, and the combination of the ultra-slow tempo, the sound and the extremely suffocation performance brings my thoughts to a wonderful Unholy Marriage between Mayhem and Gorgoroth. Uh?

90/100

Ivan Tibos.