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intothewellsabyss
Dec 23, 20224 min read

Marduk - Dark Endless (1992)

𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐘𝐏𝐓𝐒 - 𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐁𝐔𝐌 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐊 & 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐘 𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋…



On December 23, 1992, Marduk released their debut full-length studio album Dark Endless via No Fashion Records.


It was recorded and mixed at Hellspawn Studios during four days in June 1992. Like many early Black Metal albums, it mixes Black Metal vocals with predominantly Death Metal stylings.


Dark Endless is the only full-length Marduk studio album to feature Andreas Axelsson on vocals and Rikard Kalm on bass. The album's artwork is a painting by Dani Vala (Obscurity).



Background:

Morgan Steinmeyer Håkansson, the band's guitarist, formed Marduk with the intention of being the "most blasphemous band in the world". Concerning the band's two initial releases, the 1991 EP, F**k Me Jesus, and their debut album, Dark Endless, released the subsequent year, Marduk can be sonically defined as Black Metal which interwove significant influence from Death Metal.


For both of these releases, the band's lineup consisted of the aforementioned Morgan, Andreas 'Dread' Axelsson as vocalist, Magnus 'Devo' Andersson as guitarist, Rikard Kalm as bassist, and Joakim 'Av Gravf' Göthberg as drummer, while Dan Swanö of Edge of Sanity mixed both albums.


Not only are Marduk one of my favorite bands in the genre of Black Metal, they are one of the hardest working outfits in the world of Metal. Hailing from Sweden, they were once one of the many darker sounding Death Metal vulgarians from that region. Dark Endless was the first of three efforts to be recorded at Hellspawn Studio (a later incarnation of Gorysound Studio before it changed its name to the popularly known Unisound Studio) with Dan Swäno.



Like many of the second wave bands the metamorphosis of Marduk saw them progress from a savage Death Metal band into the full-fledged Black Metal icons of today. Over the span of their first three records the band experimented with tempo shifts and atmospheres. It wouldn’t be until the fourth album that the band solidified their intense Black Metal stylings. But, on Dark Endless, Marduk were an unorthodox Death Metal band, who did not follow the conventional sounds of the Stockholm, Sundsvall or Gothenburg scenes. While their lyrics followed the misanthropic nature of the then-burgeoning (second wave) Black Metal doctrine, the bands sound was purely Death Metal – though they sounded like no-one else at the time.


Nonetheless, the stability of this line-up was ruptured following the release of Dark Endless when both Dread and Rikard Kalm departed from the band. Thence, Av Gravf assumed the position of vocalist while Roger 'B. War' Svensson assumed the position of bass player, consequently recording their second full-length album, Those of the Unlight, in April 1993.


Albeit, Dark Endless is a classic Death Metal masterpiece, containing powerful songs like The Sun Turns Black As Night, The Funeral Seemed To Be Endless, Holy Inquisition and fan favorites like The Black..., Still F**king Dead, Departure From The Mortals.



Critical Reception:

In a review for AllMusic upon the Regain Records re-issue, Alex Henderson wrote;

“In 2007, Regain Records reissued several albums Marduk had recorded in the '90s, including Dark Endless, Those of the Unlight, Opus Nocturne and Heaven Shall Burn.
The oldest of the bunch was Dark Endless, Recorded in 1992, Dark Endless was Marduk's first official full-length album, although not the very first thing they recorded (the infamously titled F**k Me Jesus demo of 1991 had already earned them a small cult following in the Scandinavian Extreme Metal scene).
Of course, a lot of things changed in Extreme Metal between 1992 and 2007. The Death Metal/Black Metal field became more diverse, Scandinavia became the part of the world with the heaviest concentration of Death Metal bands, and more people realized that Black Metal and Death Metal -- although closely related and often combined -- were two separate things.
Dark Endless came at a time when Marduk had only been together two years (the band was formed in 1990) and black metal was quite young -- so young, in fact, that some listeners assumed the album was Death Metal and didn't pick up on the differences between Death Metal and Black Metal. And that is understandable because early Death Metal and early Black Metal were both ultra-Thrashy, Punk-drenched styles that thrived on rawness.
 

2007 Regain Records Reissue

 
Dark Endless doesn't pretend to be sophisticated or polished; these are incredibly raw, primal, bare-bones performances that underscore, in a big way, Black Metal's Punk and Hardcore roots. But one huge difference between Dark Endless and much of the Grindcore-style Death Metal that was recorded in 1992 is Marduk's lack of irony. While grindcore bands like Cannibal Corpse and Carcass had a cartoonish, dark-humored outlook, Dark Endless epitomizes the type of unsmiling serious-mindedness that set Black Metal apart from Grindcore in the early '90s.
Compared to some of Marduk's subsequent recordings, this album is mildly inconsistent. But despite its limitations and imperfections, Dark Endless (which Regain added some rare live performances from 1991 to as bonus tracks) is an exciting and historic relic from Black Metal's early years.

Note: The reviews shared here are for historical reference. The views and opinions expressed within are not always supported (in full or in part) by Into the Wells. — E.N. Wells



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