Belphegor
Blood Magick Necromance

Tracks
01. In Blood - Devour This Sanctity
02. Rise To Fall And Fall To Rise
03. Blood Magick Necromance
04. Discipline Through Punishment
05. Angeli Mortis De Profundis
06. Impaled Upon The Tongue Of Sathan
07. Possessed Burning Eyes
08. Sado Messiah


Band:
Helmuth - Heretic grunts, chainsaw
Serpenth - Bass devastation


Discography:
The Last Supper (1995)
Blutsabbath (1997)
Necrodaemon Terrorsathan (2000)
Lucifer Incestus (2003)
Goatreich - Fleshcult (2005)
Pestapokalypse VI (2006)
Bondage Goat Zombie (2008)
Walpurgis Rites - Hexenwahn (2009)


Guests:


Info

Released 14/1-2011
Reviewed 3/3-2011


Links:
belphegor.at
myspace
nuclear blast

What can I say, a band covered in blood, a record cover looking not too pleasant and a record name that is all other than something that promises a record that any sane person would like to hear. Sure, this does not have to mean too much since there are some bands with similar attributes that can succeed in making something decent. However, that is something of a rarity so it was not really something I would expect from this album when I first was about to start playing it.

It is musically what we can expect from an album in this genre with brutally heavy drumming, the more or less typical guitar lines that can be heard throughout the more extreme metal. I think some may say that it is brutal, what is for sure is that there is a massive wall of sound greeting you as the listener when you hear this album. There is a lot of sound and a massive sound image that show some more traces of melody than the more primitive and regular extreme metal bands that are there. Powerful melodic dark extreme metal or something in that fashion could be the genre for this band.

I do not think that this is good, my main feeling when I listen to this album is boredom. It is boring since it all tend to be very monotone as the wall of sound make it sound like that. You also get the feeling of it being quite slow and daft even though the speed of drums and guitars is brutally fast it tends to be so much and fast that it gives the feeling of the opposite. What is also something that strikes me when I listen is that it rarely feel that heavy.

In track four the band make something slightly different when they tone back a bit on the heaviness and goes for a bit more melodic and suddenly they feel both heavy and melodic and not just like a wall of sound. This track is actually quite good, but to be honest it is also the only track that is good on this album as the rest of the tracks feel all too boring.

I think that playing through this album is rather difficult since it is a boring album, but also the music feels a bit difficult to listen to when the singer just sound like he’s making grunting noises rather than singing lyrics, after listening to this record many times I can notice that the band sing in German in a track on this record and I am quite proud that I could do that because it is really difficult to make out anything that is sung, and maybe it is the best that way since the lyrics are probably genre typical with ridiculous themes about satan and blood and beyond.

No, this band does not only look extremely ridiculous in their promo photos, they make music that is equally ridiculous even though I guess they are alright for what genre they play and probably appeal to some even though I think they suck quite badly.

In the end I can just wonder if it is from listening to this band that I got this terribly awful headache that I have right now.

HHHHHHH

Label - Nuclear Blast
Three similar bands - Immortal/Celtic Frost/Dimmu Borgir
Rating: HHHHHHH
Reviewer: Daniel Källmalm