For nearly 30 years, Marduk has been one of the forerunners of the Swedish Black Metal scene. Taking a fast, aggressive and brutal approach to their songwriting, you can always expect something entertaining from them. Although they've had a few misses in their discography, most of their 14 full-length albums are very praise worthy. On their 14th album, 'Viktoria', they keep it short and to the point. With just 9 songs and clocking in at 33 minutes, Marduk wastes no time with their audio assault on songs such as "June 44", "Narva", "The Last Fallen", as well as the title track. The slower songs, "Tiger I", "Werwolf", and "Silent Night" are equally punishing and very well written. Morgan pulls out all the stops and overloads us with a barrage of riffs and Mortuus proves--yet again--that he's the most dominant vocalist that Marduk has ever had. Although the album cover is very lackluster, 'Viktoria' is a definite album of the year contender for me.

I've not been a big fan of Marduk's albums over the last 20 years but there have been some decent efforts from the band in that time span. 'Viktoria' though is not one of them. The album is just pretty flat, even compared to 2015's 'Frontschwein' which though receiving high praise was just mediocre to me. It feels pretty uninspired, as if the band is just sort of going through the motions and didn't really have their essence invested in this one. I'll stick to "'Opus Nocturne' and the albums prior for my Marduk fix. Don't spend too much money on this one or expect a return to the old days, I think that ship has sadly sailed at this point.