With “La Grande Danse Macabre” one of the leading Black Metal bands of today already delivers their seventh studio full length in their steady ten year existence. It’s the first real MARDUK album ever since their devastating and most uncompromising “Panzer Division Marduk” offering from 1999, which was (as most of you probably know) a total blast from start to finish! So, it didn’t really come as a surprise to me when I found out that they haven’t tried to top that release in terms of speed and extremity once more. “La Grande Danse Macabre” is different. It’s still unmistakable MARDUK, but a lot easier to get into. Main composer Morgan Steinmeyer Hakansson came up with lots of midtempo parts this time, almost catchy (yet totally destructive) riffing and an overall unusual big musical variety in general. This is definitely not MARDUK’s most extreme nor blackest album, but it’s probably their best sounding (Abyss Studio) and most mature in terms of the musicianship / songwriting. And with the album’s closer ‘Jesus Christ… Sodomized’ they not only speed things up in typical MARDUK tradition once more, the song itself is also destined to turn into a new crowd favorite pretty quickly. So, with this album Morgan, B.War, Legion and Fredrik have really good chances to catch up on the big success that IMMORTAL are gaining almost everywhere at the moment.