Marduk - Heaven Shall Burn... When We Are Gathered (1996)

There was a point in my life where I had more or less considered Marduk to be one of my absolute favorite bands. I remember back in early 2003 after the release of, 'World Funeral' I personally owned absolutely everything Marduk had released at that point of their career, save for an original pressing of the, 'Fuck me Jesus' demo tape. Nowadays the only album I own is this one, 'Heaven Shall Burn... When We Are Gathered.' You might ask yourself why, and I'd be happy to explain, but it would result in a whiny rant that I'd rather not post here. Long story short though, tinnitus is a bitch, and yes, I very, very much regret selling my Marduk collection!

Anyway, Heaven Shall Burn... When We Are Gathered was a turning point in this legendary Swedish black metal band's career as it was at this moment that they fully embraced their relentless blast beat driving Christ rapping black metal style that culminated into utter Satanic madness of apocalyptic levels a few years later when they released, 'Panzer Division Marduk' (Goddamn, why did I sell my fucking Marduk records!!?) This was also the first release to feature vocalist Erik "Legion" Hagstedt who previously played with Ophthalamia and after his time with Marduk went on to perform with Devian and Witchery. Additionally this was Marduk's first album recorded in Abyss Studios with Peter Tägtgren, which resulted in a much fuller properly produced affair over the somewhat low-fi production of their previous outputs with Dan Swanö as producer at Unisound.

Even with Marduk's barbarous black metal style firmly in place on this release things remain quite tight the whole way through with precise and perfect drumming from Fredik Andersson and a good assortment of riffs from Morgan "Evil" Steinmeyer Håkansson. Generally completely dissonant, cruel and hellish in their delivery, but at other times his guitar work slows down for for some interesting melodic riffs, which are best displayed on, 'Glorification Of The Black God,' which are based on classical composer, Mussorgsky's, 'A Night on a Bare Mountain.' Bogge "War" Svensson's bass guitar is also clearly heard on this album though he doesn't have any random points of brilliance, but in the end it's all about Legion's vocals. I mean seriously, both then and now there really wasn't anyone that could match this guys inhuman devilish shrieks of raging Satanic turbulence. They are simply the most ideal vocals a black metal band could have hoped to find and I'm going to leave it at that.

Anyway, this album goes a little bit like this. After a short intro titled, 'Summon the Darkness,' merciless fury is unleashed in the form of, 'Beyond the Grace of God' and for the next twenty five minutes things continue in this style until reaching the much slower and melodic, 'Dracul Va Domni Din Nou In Transilvania' before returning to the albums previous format for one final blast of ferocity called, 'Legion.' Altogether its just thirty five minutes, but frankly I love every second of it. Although Marduk isn't a band for everyday this is the perfect album for me at the moment as December has a tradition of pissing me off beyond reasonable comprehension. Needless to say, I haven't caught the Christmas jingle this year.

In the end, 'Heaven Shall Burn... When We Are Gathered' along with, 'Those of the Unlight' and 'Panzer Division Marduk' is Marduk at the top of their genre and are worth hearing for all fans of brutal Swedish black metal.