### Marduk: Iron dawn

#### 18/01/12 || Habakuk

Although I’ve always steered clear of Marduk’s trebly high speed black metal, years of Angel Corpse and polish black/death metal have left their mark. It seems I’m now slightly more susceptible to their approach, and with their 2011 3- track EP “Iron Dawn”, their first aural output entered my folds. Why this one? Simply because I dug the cover so much. And what a fucken great artwork it is: great composition, odd yellow color scheme and Panther tanks. Yes! And actually, the whole package (digipak, of course… gah!) is pretty damn great in terms of aesthetics. That is, if your idea of metal features tanks, MG42’s, stick grenades and so on. Works for me.

At times the self-questioning listener might be led to wonder why extreme metal and war matters go so well together. The record gives an insight, loud, fast and deafening: Both embody the fundamental combination of man-made chaos and the ensuing attempts at maintaining some sort of order. And believe me, here is no shortage in chaos: basically, the first two tracks are 8 minutes of utter mayhem, with structure deriving mainly from the fantastic, bile-dripping vocals of Mr. Mortuus. Except for the bass guitar (as always. Random fact: We actually called the mute lever on my old bass guitar “Marduk switch”) the instruments just have at it without mercy or relent: blastbeats galore whip the fast picked, simple dissonant guitar work forwards, which is degraded from riffing to a basic setting of tone – sounds dumb but works great. The icing on the war cake is the incorporation of a ton of samples into the actual music (not just the typical intro/outro usage) that reach from air raid sirens, to Stuka dives, explosions, machine gun fire and Wochenschau propaganda. A shining moment is the beginning to “Wacht am Rhein” (the operation that triggered the “Battle of the Bulge”) where a typical blistering Marduk riff/blastbeat combination is combined with the cacophonous howl of a Nebelwerfer battery (why the fuck do I recognize this) – with, excuse me, devastating effects. So yeah – this is a truly extreme listening experience, by all means.

However, it is thin ice the band is treading on. Take away the tempo, samples and overall violence and what’s left is: nothing. See track 3, “Prochorovka”. What deals with the largest tank battle in history is in fact a slowly dragging, and in the end boring as hell track that fails in conveying any atmosphere (or anything at all). The only thing I take home from this is the clearly decipherable line “Sturmvoiks and Stukas rule the sky” – and hey: if you’re trying to appeal to the war nerd crowd, then at least do it right: The plane is called Sturmovik. Sorry, nitpicking, but with a concept EP you’ll have to deal with that.

Everyone else, harken and remember: Track 3 can be easily skipped, the black metal vocals just don’t work on their own. Which of course lowers the score somewhat, but rest assured the first two songs are absolute 9 material. Great shit.

- Information
- Released: 2011
- Label: Regain Records
- Website: www.marduk.nu
- Band
- Mortuus: vocals
- Morgan: guitars
- Devo: guitars, bass
- Lars: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Warschau 2: Headhunter Halfmoon
- 02. Wacht Am Rhein: Drumbeats Of Death
- 03. Prochorovka: Blood And Sunflowers