Like the title says I will be ranking all
13 Marduk studio albums today. Ever since I started listening to the Black Metal genre in 1994
Marduk has been one of my all time favorite bands in the scene. Still to this day after playing for 27 years (!!) they still release excellent records.
Published on my Instagram
Herr_Perdition in 2 parts the albums ranked 13-7 and 6-1. It's most for fun I could probably change my mind. Okay my two least favorite ones were "easy" to pick out, even if I don't think any of these albums are bad. But there's of course better ones then the others.
However my top-2 albums will probably never change!
The ones ranked 10-7 was really hard to chose on this list. That's when I could change my mind depending on what my mood is on that day and also my 3rd favorite
Marduk album.
But on this day the
13th of August 2017 this is my opinion. Since I'm only doing full length studio albums EP's that I would rank very high like the 1991 demo reissued on CD in 1994
Fuck Me Jesus definitely in my top-3
Marduk releases ever. Also the classic
Here's No Peace recording from December 91 but not released until 1997 would also rank high.
Will probably never do a list of all their EP's basically because it's too hard. Check out my complete
Marduk EP collection (well every release not every print version) over
HERE.
Due to the text limitations that Instagram got I'll write more in depth of each and every album here.
13. La Grande Danse Macabre (2001)
First print LP on Blooddawn Productions/Regain Records limited to 1000 copies
Some record had to take the last place it was pretty easy.
La Grande Danse Macabre I do like this album it has the brilliant track
Azrael. Other great songs like
Jesus Christ... Sodomized and
Funeral Bitch. Even if I do prefer the
Obedience (2000) EP version better of
Funeral Bitch. The rest ain't bad but average by
Marduk standards.
This was the excellent longtime drummer Fredrik Andersson last album with the band after being a member since 1993. He sure showed his skills on all the records he played on during those years and Fredrik will always be my favorite
Marduk drummer.
Read more about the album
here.
12. Nightwing (1998)
Reissue LP from 2016 on Osmose Productions
Nightwing have some great songs like my favorites
Of Hell's Fire and
Slay The Nazarene I also really like the title track
Nightwing. The other ones are not on par with those awesome tracks.
Why they re-recorded
Deme Quaden Thyrane I don't understand!? It was already perfect on
Opus Nocturne 4 year earlier. A very strange decision in my opinion...
Still remember buying
Nightwing in 1998 on CD and the bus ride back home mainly because an old friend (who introduced me to
Megadeth, Slayer, King Diamond etc.) saw me with the record and he thought Black Metal was ridiculous. I didn't give a shit about his moronic opinions.
However the
Nightwing album wasn't played that often back in the day. This one doesn't match the rest of their discography and hasn't aged well either.
Peter Tägtgren recorded some great albums with
Marduk and the production was for the most part great. But on
Nightwing the guitars are boring and overall the sound and production is very weak in my opinion. I know that some people rate this one much higher in their
Marduk "best of albums" ever. Although not bad it's definitely one of my least favorite
Marduk records.
11. World Funeral (2003)
First print LP on Blooddawn Production limited to 1500 copies
World Funeral might just be the most underrated album in the entire
Marduk discography! Despite the fact that I only rank this album at number 11 and 3rd to last on my list.
This was the last
Marduk album to be recorded with Peter Tägtgren as producer in
The Abyss Studio. Even more significant the last record to feature B. War on bass after 12 years with the band and vocalist Legion last one after 8 years in
Marduk.
Many have different opinions about Legion's performance with the band especially live. I think he did a great job on the albums and most of the time live. Even though I think the band needed a change both musically and their appearance/image, layout and design in order to progress. They sure got it! Already on
La Grande Danse Macabre it was very evident that something needed to be "fixed".
World Funeral it's consistently good throughout and it sounds great. The highlight songs on it for me are:
With Satan And Victorious Weapons; Bleached Bones; To the Death's Head True; Hearse; Blessed Unholy; Night Of The Long Knives also the instrumental
Blackcrowned.
My absolute favorite on the album is
Cloven Hoof. I mentioned 8 of the 11 songs so it's certainly an amazing record.
Read more about the album
here.
10. Heaven Shall Burn... When We Are Gathered (1996)
Shadow Records picture disc LP from 1997 unsure how many copies exists 300-500 (?)
Now I know that this will be a controversial choice!
Heaven Shall Burn... When We Are Gathered are some peoples favorite
Marduk record. I understand why because this one is fucking awesome.
Last year in December 2016 they also performed the entire album in their hometown of Norrköping as a 20th anniversary celebration of its release I guess. During 2017 they actually performed the whole album from start to finish in their live setlist on selective gigs.
This was the first
Marduk album to be recorded with Peter Tägtgren in the Abyss Studio and the first one to feature Legion on vocals previously from another brilliant Swedish band
Ophthalmia. It sounds awesome and all tracks are great but the ones that stands out most in my opinion are
Legion; The Black Tormentor of Satan; Glorification Of The Black God; Darkness It Shall Be; Infernal Eternal and
Dracul Va Domni Din Nou In Transilvania.
But I could mention all the songs on the album because that's really how outstanding this is! On another day this would probably rank much higher.
For the tour of this record Peter Tägtgren was actually the 2nd guitar player next to Morgan Håkansson and this tour spawned the great
Live In Germania (1997) live album. You can see my ranking of the three
Marduk live records on Instagram if you're interested in that.
Read more about the album
here.
9. Dark Endless (1992)
2012 LP reissue on Century Media/Blooddawn Production limited to 1500 copies
Guess this is another "controversial" choice. I absolutely think that
Dark Endless is a classic album in the genre that everyone should own. But... The production is far from not perfected even if it got an early charm of course.
It's very strange considering their demo
Fuck Me Jesus &
Here's No Peace also was recorded with Dan Swanö in the
Unisound Studio aka.
Hellspawn/Gorysound. Those recordings sounds so much more grim and harsh even if the band still had a Blackened Death Metal sound to it.
The record was released on the once great record label
No Fashion Records and the album has so many great classic songs like
The Black...; Departure from the Mortals; Within the Abyss; Still Fucking Dead (Here's No Peace); The Funeral Seemed To Be Endless; Dark Endless; The Sun Turns Black As Night and
Holy Inquisition.
Btw. this is one of the most ugliest cover artwork in
Marduk's whole album discography in my opinion. It doesn't look Black Metal at all! It has a sort of Death/Thrash Metal vibe to it. But who the hell cares when the the music is this amazing!
Read more about the album
here.
8. Wormwood (2009)
First print LP limited to 700 copies released on Blooddawn Productions
This is a a fantastic album and
Wormwood was the 3rd Marduk album to feature my favorite vocalist in the scene Daniel "Mortuus" Rostén (aka. Arioch of
Funeral Mist & Triumphator) also this is the first record with Lars Broddesson (2006-13) on drums.
The production in bassist Davo Andersson's
Endarker Studio is great and the album starts with the brilliant song
Nowhere, No One, Nothing. Other outstanding tracks are
Into Utter Madness and the 3 songs that reminds a bit of
Funeral Mist:
Unclosing the Curse; Chorus of Cracking Necks and
Funeral Dawn. Other great ones are
Whorecrown and
Phosphorous Redeemer and altogether an awesome solid and even record.
As stated earlier
Heaven Shall Burn.., Dark Endless and
Wormwood was the hardest to rank. All 3 are essential in any serious Black Metal collection!
Read more about the album
here.
7. Frontschwein (2015)
First print LP released by Century Media/Blooddawn Productions
Their latest album
Frontschwein was released after the band had been together for 25 years. How many bands still deliver the goods after such a long time? Not many!
Maybe
Darkthrone is the only band I could compare them with in terms of as many albums released and still being amazing.
Marduk sure is a unique band even if only guitarist Morgan Håkansson is the only remaining founding member since they started in 1990.
Anyway this album is an absolute monster it starts of with the great title track
Frontschwein and then the awesome
The Blond Beast and
Afrika. Other songs I got to mention is
Wartheland; Between The Wolf-Packs and
503, but the whole album is a beast and should be played from start to finish.
6. Panzer Division Marduk (1999)
2011 picture disc reissue on Blooddawn Productions
I still remember when I got
Panzer Division Marduk on release day and being completely blown away by it. Still have that effect on me after 19 years later. In my opinion the best album of the "Legion era". This was the 3rd studio album with him as frontman.
I think of this as
Marduk's love / hate album either you think it's awesome or you might think it's just an album where they only try to play as fast as humanly possible.
Sure one cannot go with what people think about it on Metal Archives but a 66% rating is the lowest of all
Marduk full length studio albums. Come on you fucking people...
Nightwing had been I bit of a letdown according to me. On this one Peter Tägtgren and
Marduk redeemed themselves with a timeless classic Black Metal album. If I were to name a few favorites songs I think that the title track
Panzer Division Marduk has to be mentioned first. It's almost like their anthem song and the most played song live according to setlist.fm, don't know how accurate that is. Nevertheless a classic song.
Other brilliant songs are
Baptism By Fire; 502; Fistfucking God's Planet; Christraping Black Metal; Blooddawn and
Beast Of Prey. But I could mention every song on this masterpiece.
Read more about the album
here,
5. Serpent Sermon (2012)
First print LP on Century Media/Blooddawn Productions
Serpent Sermon was the 4th album that the band recorded with Mortuus and Devo Andersson. Once again
Marduk made an amazing record with this one. It's also one of their most balanced and even albums they ever made.
Sure it has excellent standout songs like
Souls For Belial; Serpent Sermon; Temple Of Decay; Into Second Death; Messianic Pestilence etc.
It's just a pure pleasure to listen to this one from start to finish and enjoy the perfect production and songwriting. Have no complaints about this one. An extremely underrated album in the
Marduk discography in my opinion.
4. Plague Angel (2004)
2018 clear LP reissue on Century Media limited to 300-500 copies (?)
Plague Angel was the first album to feature Mortuus and I think
Marduk got a fresh start/reboot.
Considering what Mortuus/Arioch had accomplished with
Funeral Mist and
Triumphator I cannot think of a better vocalist in
Marduk. Also the fact that Devo Andersson (guitarist 1992-94) returned to the band as bass player
and been in the band ever since had an impact I believe.
They released
Plague Angel just 1 year and 9 months after
World Funeral and the band had made a huge progress in that short time.
It's still the same band but the image and music got much more intense. Just compare the promo videos from the 2 mentioned albums.
This was also the first time they used Devo Anderssons's
Endarker Studio after 7 years (5 full length studio albums, 2 live albums and 3 EP's) with Peter Tägtgren in his
The Abyss Studio.
It's getting really hard to pick favorite songs because this is one hell of an album without any filler material. But
Seven Angels, Seven Trumpets; The Hangman Of Prague; Warschau; Throne of Rats; Perish In Flames; Steel Inferno and the collaboration with the excellent Swedish martial industrial ambient band
Arditi on
Deathmarch also got to be mentioned.
Read more about the album
here.
3. Rom 5:12 (2007)
First print picture disc LP released on Blooddawn Production limited to 500 copies
Number 3 on the list this was also a hard choice between
Plague Angel and this one but today I will pick
Rom 5:12. The second studio album with Mortuus and his contribution is more present on this album then on the previous one I think.
He designed the album layout, he also has a graphic company called
Holy Poison. Just like the great designs he made for
Funeral Mist is's great to see in
Marduk. I recommend getting the original CD release also that comes with a 44-page booklet.
Excellent songs like
The Leveling Dust; Cold Mouth Prayer (feat. their former vocalist Joakim Af Gravf);
Imago Mortis; Accuser/Opposer (feat. A.A. Nemtheanga on vocals from
Primordial);
Vanity Of Vanities; Womb of Perishableness and again a
Arditi collaboration on the song
1651 are some of the highlights.
I sound like a broken record. but listen to this from start to finish! You'll get the whole experience of this dark artwork so much better that way.
Read more about the album
here.
2. Those of the Unlight (1993)
Osmose Productions LP reissue from 2013
Those Of The Unlight was the second
Marduk album and the second
Marduk album I ever bought in 1994 on CD. An album that shouldn't need any introduction and should be in everyone's collection.
The band had really progressed from their debut and I think Dan Swanö also had grown as a producer. The Blackened Death Metal feeling on their previous
Dark Endless was gone and this is just pure Swedish Black Metal magic.
I know this album inside out after listening to it so much in the 90's (and still do). Not one bad second on this record and some of the best ever
Marduk songs is on this one. Like
Wolves; On Darkened Wings; Burn My Coffin and
Those of the Unlight.
I definitely mean ALL the other songs on
Those Of The Unlight are Black Metal classics I cannot leave out songs like
Darkness Breeds Immortality; A Sculpture Of The Night; Echoes From The Past and
Stone Stands Its Silent Vigil.
In 2013-14
Marduk played the full album from start to finish on some selective gigs as a 20th Anniversary of the albums release
Although I absolutely think
Wolves; On Darkened Wings; Burn My Coffin as some of their best songs it would be great if
Darkness Breeds Immortality; A Sculpture Of The Night and
Stone Stands Its Silent Vigil could be played more often live in their setlist.
1. Opus Nocturne (1994)
First print LP on Osmose Productions black version limited to 700 copies
The pick for the number 1 was easy!
Opus Nocturne the first
Marduk album I ever bought. It has my favorite
Marduk track of all times on it
Sulphur Souls and my 2nd favorite
The Sun Has Failed.
But not just that the production of Dan Swanö in the
Unisound Studio is pure perfection. Around this time so many great records had been recorded there (I'm not going to mention any because you should know what masterpieces they are).
About
Opus Nocturne I was very new into the Black Metal scene when I got this, I owned
In The Nightside Eclipse by
Emperor and
The Somberlain by
Dissection (metal of death yeah I know...).
Before I got these records my favorite bands at the time were
Dismember, Morbid Angel, Kreator, Slayer, Entombed, Unleashed, Sepultura etc. So it took me awhile to understand this record just like the
Emperor album did.
I immediately liked
Materialized In Stone; Sulphur Souls; Opus Nocturne and
The Sun Has Failed. After a couple of listens I liked
From Subterranean Throne Profound: Autumnal Reaper; Deme Quaden Thyrane and
Untrodden Paths (Wolves Part II).
Every song soon became a masterpiece in this "new" genre I was getting into and I would play it nonstop on repeat after understanding it completely.
Some probably think it's my nostalgia talking. Sure that's a factor. But considering
Funeral Mist is my favorite band (yes even more then
Marduk) my favorite albums by
Marduk are still
Those Of The Unlight and their grand opus being
Opus Nocturne.
This record still stands the test of time it's still sounds fresh every time I listen to it. One of the best records in the whole Black Metal genre of all time. That is for sure!
Read more about the album
here---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update 2019-12-02-----------------------
So finally the updated version had begun after the long teasing. I'll definitely publish the new list over here. Haven't decided if it will be episodic like on my new Instagram account
Die Warhen Marduk or as it's simply called
@herr_marduk.
Anyway if you want a sneak peak at numbers
12 to 14 they can be found over
here.
Today
19-12-08 numbers
9 to 11 were added over at my
Instagram.
Update January 7th 2019
-------------------------------
The new post with all
14 Marduk albums is finished and will post it someday soon (which can mean 3 days, 3 weeks or 3 months). Since I made this list about 1.5 years ago there is some big changes in my opinion about some of the albums. Like my favorite Legion album! Also a new last place! Alright another spoiler the top-4 is left intact.
Anyway in the meanwhile here's some links to 2 of the 3
Marduk live albums. I do own the
Live In Germania (1997) and the 4 so called
live official bootlegs albums and 7" releases on LP. Haven't posted those on the blog you can see them all except
Live In Germania on my
Instagram.
Infernal Eternal (2000)
Warschau (2005)
Update December 6th 2018
---------------------------------
I've done an updated version of all
14 Marduk albums but not posted it yet. Haven't finished all the texts for all the records.
Will probably wait to sometime in 2019 until I post it. Here's some other rankings or top lists of bands and genres. Some are quite outdated I haven't updated every post with the newest album.
Immortal
Unleashed
Dødheimsgard
Abigor
Kreator best songs
My favorite Death Metal albums
Anyway will post the new
Marduk list as soon as possible in MMXIX.
Update June 30th 2018
--------------------------------
So I have had this record for 6 days now and it's still way too early for me to have a real perspective on where
Viktoria will be on this list eventually. You can read more about my thoughts on it in this
Viktoria post that I made.
One day I will update the list don't know when that will be, but one thing I want to say is that I prefer
Viktoria over the previous 2015 album
Frontschwein. Does this mean that I will put
Viktoria as my number 7? Not by default. It might be there? I don't know at the time, but when I made this list almost a year ago I also overrated
Frontschwein.
Also underrated some of them. Something that was discovered when I bought some I only had on CD before upgrading them to vinyls. It also became more evident when I made blog and Instagram posts over
@herr_black_metal about them. It really gave me a whole new perspective on MANY albums, not my 2 least favorite or 4 best ones though.
It's not a matter of life and death... But I've noted how many page views this post gets so I want it to be as accurate as possible.
Update May 19th 2018
-------------------------------
I've updated some of the pictures and text. Not changed any of the album order. I still think that the list represents my opinion on
Marduk's discography. But I still have the ancient problem to choose between
Plague Angel or
Rom 5:12 as their 3rd best album.
Also
Heaven Shall Burn... When We Are Gathered should have been ranked higher. I think that
Wormwood and
Frontschwein probably should change places. Might redo the list once the new one
Viktoria will be released in about 2 months on the 22nd of June. The 2 songs that have been released from it sounds great!
