10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF MARANATHA BY FUNERAL MIST

Today on the 23rd of February marks the 10 year anniversary since the release my 3rd favorite album of all time being released.

I own all the vinyl releases of this 2 x LP release. But to get a better picture mainly for my post on Instagram I only picked out 1 LP per release. Forgot to include some t-shirts and stickers on the picture I might fix that. Soon...

Missing some CD releases like The Ajna Offensive and Season Of Mist ones but I'll get those eventually they're not expensive nor hard to come by and I have no hurry.

Here is the 1st print 2009 LP (the one in the middle), the Trisagion 5-LP box 2013 release, the 2017 reissue LP and the original 2009 CD all released on Norma Evangelium Diaboli. It's worth buying that CD alone just for the 28-page booklet that has a lot of additional artwork that appeals to me.

Have mentioned this so many times before... That I don’t like to say any band is my favorite but if I had to pick one Funeral Mist would be my choice. Know that while reading this post.

About 1.5 years ago for my post number 300 on Instagram I listed my top-3 albums. I still stand behind my choices that was made back then.

But I could go into if this is my 3rd favorite record ever or if it’s really The Somberlain (1993) by Dissection. It comes down to how such a list is done but I’m not dedicating this post to that topic.

Will say for sure it’s the best album of this millennium though. Even if the previous Funeral Mist album Salvation (2003) is almost as brilliant.

But to choose between Maranatha or Salvation is also very hard. I mean which is your favorite of these ones?

• Blood Fire Death or Under The Sign Of The Black Mark
• Storm of the Light’s Bane or The Somberlain
• In The Nightside Eclipse or Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk
• Filosofem or Det Som En Gang Var

Can go on with more examples but there’s a very fine line between all those records and I could debate them for days. Also which Funeral Mist release is best.

Have to admit that I didn’t really like Maranatha the first time I heard it. Salvation had set such an extremely high new standard for how Black Metal in the 2000's could sound like. But I also feel that Maranatha isn’t as approachable as Salvation if you ask me.

Not saying Salvation is a commercial Black Metal album because it’s most definitely isn’t.

Think Arioch took a risk with Maranatha I will not go into a song by song review here because I think of it as a whole full experience. He could have failed but he succeeded when some questioned some songs I hail them as brilliancy.

In my opinion Arioch wrote more weirder, twisted & sinister things on Maranatha then on Salvation but we're talking about nitpicking things here. Because both are outstanding masterpieces both albums that bands only could dream about recording once in their entire career.

Know that some don’t like the cover but it’s probably my favorite Funeral Mist artwork. I would at least put it among my top-3 Funeral Mist designs and since their first release Promo 95' there's been so many different artworks inside booklets, on t-shirts, posters and so on.

Anyway the cover art is very fitting for the experience Maranatha gives me. Which with some petty words are very hard to express.