Marduk – ‘Viktoria’ CD

With a career spanning near three decades, Sweden’s Marduk staked quite the claim to the black metal throne. Forming when the genre’s infamous second wave was gaining serious momentum, the band have gone on to forge a formidable career with an equally strong back catalogue to boot. Three years after the release of ‘Frontschwein,’ the band were ready to enter the trenches again with ‘Viktoria,’ their fourteenth effort.

Whilst some might expect a band touching near three decades to mix up the pallet to keep ideas fresh, Marduk, however, are not that breed of band. Whilst nothing on offer with ‘Viktoria’ is anything particularly new or fresh, this record demonstrates a band who knows their sound through and through. There are dabbles of experimentation, yes, but not enough to alienate those from their core sound. For its vast majority, ‘Viktoria’ does precisely what one would expect from a Marduk album, and that is to offer an explosive bout of aggressive and visceral black metal.