Marduk

The Swedish band’s bid to be “the most blasphemous band in the world” might seem quaint next to church-burning Norwegian groups like Mayhem, but it remains one of the most brutal bands today. Metal’s growing tendency toward creeping atmospherics colors recent Marduk albums, and nearly every song on 2009’s Wormwood alternates between funereal dirges and frenzied blast-beats. The band’s most recent, Serpent Sermon, features more of the same, but with even more colorful song titles, including one dubbed “Hail Mary (Piss-Soaked Genuflexion).”

Updated 05/30/2012