According
to Marduks website, this three song EP is about
to be unleashed because the material ”differs from the concept that is being
created for the next full length album”. After
spinning Iron Dawn a few times one can only hope that Marduk is up to the
challenge of superseding their own brilliance,
because: Fuck, this EP rules!
The first two songs – track one being a sort of second chapter to ”Warschau”
from the Plague Angel album – is what you expect from Marduk: The so-called ”norsecore”
hybrid between grim black metal and grindcore –
a style label apparently also applied to Dark Funeral and Gorgoroth.
In other, less pretentious, words: ass-kicking black metal from Scandinavia.
Marduk rocked my world with the awe inspiring Panzer Division Marduk album from
’99, at the same time cutting themselves loose from the melodic black of their
former releases. Iron Dawn has more in common with that legendary work of art
than it has with Marduks later albums – it is a
return to the nerve wracking samples of Stukas and
Stalin Organs, the mad onslaught of brutal drumming and tortured guitar wails,
with the addition of a distorted (scary!) Marlene Dietrich in the final and most
interesting song, ”Prochorovka: Blood And
Sunflowers”
It’s one of Marduks rare, but great slow-paced
songs – maybe even the slowest one they've made.
I’ll say one thing about it: If it was ever turned into the background music of
a post-apocalyptic movie montage, I could die a happy man. It’s that unsettling!
