Brutal Assault anno 2009 was waning towards an end, and the last band on our agenda was the old Swedish black metal band Marduk, who was hosting the Metalshop Stage in the dark of the night.

After a short bombastic intro sequence, the concert started hard and fast like a studded leather glove straight in your solar plexus; at least, this was the intention, but since Marduk was plagued by the same low volume of their sound (except for the bass-drum of course…) the desired effect ended quite anticlimactic…
Still, those of the crowd hardened enough through a life of metal to let them survive this far into the festival seemed very pleased with the corpse painted Swedes performance nonetheless. So much in fact that two men decided to give the show the fire show it so sorely needed up on stage right in the middle of the audience!

So, what about the performance?
Well, the performance as such only consisted of the band standing more or less still in their places throughout the entire evening performing break-neck speed headbanging; the only exception was singer Daniel ‘Mortuus’ Rostén (a.k.a. Arioch) who moved about a bit, but that was the extent of it.
For effects, Marduk was under the same ‘no fire’ rule as the rest of the festivals bands had been put under (Immortal being the only exception, I believe), so instead they had decided to almost completely cover the stage in a mist using some large smoke-cannons they had at their disposal. The visual wasn’t a complete loss, as they weren’t really doing anything anyway.

I am well aware that I am hardly the target audience for this band, and I saw several around me who seemed to enjoy themselves, in a morbid rigid sort of way, but neither music nor show was to my liking.
It wasn’t decidedly bad; it just left me with… nothing… nothing at all…