Warthur
Another furious black metal onslaught from Marduk finds the band stretching their wings a bit with a conceptual suite, the last five songs of the album telling the story of Vlad "the Impaler" Dracul. To be honest, though, the main attraction here isn't the concept - I didn't notice it on the first listen-through, in fact - but the honed and perfected performance of the band, who offer up a level of fury and anger that compares favourably to the most venomous work of Mayhem or Darkthrone. Those who are into the second wave black metal sound won't find much that's unexpected on here, but they'll find this material very competently performed indeed.