Metal Reviews

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I still think this should be a classic, as you first put it under, rather than an archive. Still, it's a phenominal album. In my opinion, it's perfect from start to finish.

Recently I listened to Dark Endless once more and I was... amazed...
So i re-listened ALL of their releases and I must say you were wrong saying they recorded only one Classic. Imo they recorded 3 and Heaven Shall Burn... is not one of them. It's a marvelous album but comparing it to Dark Endless, Those of the Unlight and Opus Nocturne.... :shock:.... It doesn't have a chance.

Dark Endless: One of the few albums that deserves the "True" title. Why? Simply you can find here all the things that are rather discriminated today in the BM genre.
The Northern, cold & nordic music... True...

Those of the Unlight: When listening to it one understands that the main thing in BM is atmosphere.
Those... features a lot of heavy/hard riffs and music becomes MORE atmospheric and frightening thanks to them.
This is an example of how to use heavy/hard riffs in BM.
And maybe listening to this opus one disliking BM should understand it's beauty and agree that it's the most complicated genre in the modern music.

Opus Nocturne: A pure brilliant.
It reaches the heigths of Darkthrone's Transylvanian Hunger (But all of you know that you can't put a < or > sign between Marduk and Darkthrone).
(I like Opus Nocturne better than Transylvanian..., though).
Fredrik Andersson's perfect drumming work (it's his first album with Marduk, but he already makes a big impression), Grave's vox are one of the best in BM and they stand like a sky-scrap with a grand sound spectrum among lowfrequency bungallows... And all of it mixed with straigth guitars and powerful basses.
A pure brilliant.

P.S. Not to mention the superb lyric concepts on all 3. It's nothing like the ones you hear on Heaven Shall Burn... They are deep (a rare thing in BM ), complicated and full of mysticism. You can enjoy them without any music at all.

P.P.S. After re-listening to the biggest part of my collection I changed My BM album top a lot...

thank you for this elaborate descpription, I didn't like world funeral, but now i intend to see into their older stuff...

Those were lousy albums, comparitively speaking. None of the epic qualities of HSB, none of the great riffs, none of the great vocals, and none of the greatness inherent in their predecessor-to-Behemoth death-tainted black metal.



Falls far short of Gorgoroth's similar-in-style Pentagram, and doesn't hold a candle to any of the 'sabbatical' Darkthrone albums.



Those of the Unlight is nearly as good as HSB, but doesn't nearly reach the riffing on that album.



No.

Equating this album to Transilvanian Hunger does not do TH any justice. This album is product, as opposed to HSB, which is not. I blame the new member who had not yet been fully integrated into the confines of the band.

HSB represents how they could do with better chemistry.

P.S. Not to mention the superb lyric concepts on all 3. It's nothing like the ones you hear on Heaven Shall Burn... They are deep (a rare thing in BM ), complicated and full of mysticism. You can enjoy them without any music at all.[/quote]

I'll readily concede that point, but lyrics don't make the music.

Marduk found what they should be doing with HSB, and fucked up in a sense with PDM, deviating from that style. They never really returned to it. Early Marduk is derivative of Darkthrone in a despicably obvious manner. Later Marduk is alright, but the songwriting is nothing as good as HSB's songwriting.

My opinion.

It's your opinion against mine.

Imo HSB is already tained by P. Tägtgren & through him by Nuclear Blast. Not as much as LGDM where the music crumbles into pieces, but it's on the "right" way.
Look at the lyrics, they are all written in Tägtgren's (Nuclear Blast's) style - to hell with philosophy (ok, I admit it's not the main factor when reviewing an album, but it plays not the last role):

"Darkness It Shall Be"

"I have dreamt the dreams about Satan's beautiful promises
Of the dark arts, and the blackened powers I possess
I have dreamt about worlds burning in millions of fires
And the worthless christianity burning with them"

Religions will die the day all mankind dies. So EVERY true satanist supports christianity (sounds paradoxical, doesn't it?), because christianity is one of those factors that leads mankind to it's end. It grants you the possibility to sin and then to be absolved. The possibility of being "purged" allows to exclude the control of your deeds. And this procreates many individuals who corrupt our planet and bring mankind to it's end.
Christians no offense meant, but it's very easy to misunderstand the principles of your religion and use them your own way.

Returning to the lyrics:

"A new age will arive"

What kind of a new age if everyone have died? Oh, the story teller meant the ones "from the other side" will arrive:

"You and I with our brother of higher birth"

Still it remains unclear who is this "you"? We, people? But we are all dead. And those "brothers of higher birth" have already existed before we died:

"Granted the right to lead the people to their ends"

Then what new age are we speaking about??? A contradiction...

In the end we have a fairy tale about those who are not from this world; and being beyond the grave, they destroyed the whole mankind and are now happy with it. Btw, they have the same human weaknesses and create the same religion - analogue of christianity, only the place of God is taken by Father Satan.

The other negative moment on HSB, beside lyrical concepts, is that now lyrics and music make a common integrity, or the text is being applied to the song or a three-chord, repeating musical accompaniment (like on Darkness It Shall Be) is applied to a long text. Why to use such things on an album I don't know; you could simply print the text in the booklet.

The early Marduk was written under the classical music influence (I doubt most of you know who was Musorgskiy, but it was he who influenced our noble Marduk). Yes, you can see it on HSB too, but not as clearly as on previous opuses (Tägtgren's work I suppose).

So we have a beautiful material preparation and a poor work in the studio.
The result: with a few defects it is still a strong album and one of Marduk's elite records.

I can't convince you that early Marduk is good and so can't you convince me that they are bad.
But imo it needs more than a few listens to like it.

One more thing:



If I am a new member on this forum that doesn't mean I'm a newcomer in BM and I'm not "fully integrated into the confines of the band".

It doesn't make a band better to use more chords with more complicated musical arrangements. Marduk's talents were put better to use with HSB.



Very true.



I'll listen to Dark Endless and Opus Nocturne five more times apiece. I already like Those of the Unlight a lot.



I believe you misinterpreted my statement. I meant that the new member amongst the ranks of Marduk, who had recently lost a member that they obviously had more synergy with (as evinced on Those of the Unlight) and this, in turn, affected the quality of their music. It really makes no sense to make the comparison you made.

I'll give em some more listens.

Great album, definitely deserves a place among classics, regardless of what all the legions of naysayers out there can whine. Too bad they didn't play ANY song from this one when I saw them at the Xmass fest... :(

My own 2 cents about early Marduk: I am really into Those Of The Unlight, IMO a severely underrated masterpiece which shares with HSB the rank of my favourite Marduk album, with Opus Nocturne coming as a very close second. I haven't heard Dark Endless in ages (one of the few Marduk releases I don't own yet), but I recall quite a few standout tracks.

Desolate, your points are very interesting, just a note: those lyrics were actually written by Tony "IT" Särkkä of Abruptum, hardly related to Peter Tägtgren and Nuclear Blast ;)

I truly apologize for misunderstanding your thoughts :oops:

They lost a band member indeed, but Marduk's mastermind was/is Morgan so the music couldn't change a lot.



I really hope you'll enjoy them



I know, I've read the booklet before I even listened to the album 8)
And it makes no difference. It was Peter who was producing and mixing the album, so he was behind the lyrics after all (I never said that he wrote the lyrics, I said they are written in his style).