''La Grande Danse Macabre'' is the seventh studio album by Swedish

black metal Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw (lo-fi) recording, unconventional song structures, and an emp ...

band Marduk. It was recorded and mixed at

The Abyss ''The Abyss'' is a 1989 American science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. When an American submarine sinks in the Caribbean, a US search and recovery tea ...

in December 2000 and released on March 5, 2001, by Regain Records. ''La Grande Danse Macabre'' is the last Marduk album with Fredrik Andersson on drums. The

Century Media A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

release has different cover art, one found on T-shirts. The album's title is French for "The Great Dance of Death". The title track ends with a quote from

Johan Olof Wallin Johan Olof Wallin, (15 October 1779 – 30 June 1839), was a Swedish minister, orator, poet and later Church of Sweden Archbishop of Uppsala, Sweden between 1837–1839. He is most remembered today for his hymns. Early life He was born in St ...

s poem "Angel of Death".

Themes

On ''La Grande Danse Macabre'', the theme is

death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...

. The lyrical themes are primarily reflective of this, with litterings present of the Satanic themes on which the band initially based themselves. The band's previous albums had been themed on

blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the cir ...

('' Nightwing'') and

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames a ...

('' Panzer Division Marduk''), forming a trilogy of "Blood, Fire and Death". This trio of albums are considered as Marduk's tribute to Bathory, and their 1988 breakthrough album, "Blood Fire Death".

Track listing

"Marduk - ''La Grande Danse Macabre''"
''Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives''

Personnel

;Marduk * Legion – vocals * Morgan Steinmeyer Håkansson – guitar * B. War – bass guitar * Fredrik Andersson – drums ;Guest *

Peter Tägtgren Alf Peter Tägtgren (born 3 June 1970) is a Swedish musician, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He is the founder, main songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist of death metal band Hypocrisy as well as the industrial metal band Pa ...

– mixing

References

2001 albums Marduk (band) albums Century Media Records albums Regain Records albums {{2000s-black-metal-album-stub