Plague Angel is the ninth studio album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 by Swedish black metal

Black metal

Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....

 band Marduk

Marduk (band)

Marduk is a black metal band from Norrköping, Sweden. The band formed in 1990 and released their first record in 1991. Their name is derived from the Babylonian god Marduk, patron deity of Babylon.-Musical style:...

. It was recorded and mixed at Endarker Studio in September 2004 and released that November by Regain Records

Regain Records

Regain Records is a Swedish based independent record label. The label predominantly releases death metal and black metal albums. Regain Records was founded from what remained of the former label, Wrong Again Records, by Per Gyllenbäck in 1997...

. Plague Angel is the first Marduk album to feature Mortuus on vocals and Magnus "Devo" Andersson, ex-guitarist for Marduk following his departure in 1994, on bass and mixing. The track Deathmarch features a collaboration with the Martial Industrial band Arditi

Arditi (band)

Arditi is a Swedish martial industrial and neoclassical band. It consists of Henry Möller of Puissance and Mårten Björkman from black metal bands Algaion and Octinomos. Arditi formed in 2001, deriving their name from the early Italian special forces unit known as the Arditi...

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Track listing

Trivia

• This album marked a definitive shift in Marduk's lyrical approach. Instead of overt Satanism, much of the lyrics take a more religious-like direction. This is due to Morgan and Mortuus' fascination with the Bible, as they are both admit to being Bible experts (despite Marduk's anti-religious stance, Morgan has admitted that he uses the Bible as inspiration solely for its violent content, as he finds death and violence to be most inspirational for Marduk, and that he can "write a complete song mentally by just looking at a violent painting or image").
• "The Hangman of Prague" refers to Reinhard Heydrich
  Reinhard Heydrich
  Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
  
   after the invasion of Czechoslovakia
  Czechoslovakia
  Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
  
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Personnel

Marduk

• Mortuus – vocals
• Morgan Steinmeyer Håkansson – guitar
• Magnus "Devo" Andersson – bass, mixing
• Emil Dragutinovic – drums