Lord Belial

Enter the Moonlight Gate (Metal Blade)
by Scott Hefflon

Almost an hour of pure black metal madness! As with most primarily hyperspeed black metal bands, there is the tendency for the songs to blur together into a swirl of distortion, throat-shredding vocals, and machine-gunning double bass drumming, but that’s certainly not a bad thing. Lord Belial is top-notch black metal, using all the requisite tools at their disposal, and incorporating many of the nuances of the truly adept. In English, that means they rip shit up with one of the more savage rhythm guitar sounds (noticeable most in the slower parts – yes there are slower parts, similar, perhaps, to Grave or Entombed), and there’s a wild, cavernous delay on the snakespit vocals (accompanied by a terrifying harmonized demon roar and a quick moment or two of female counterpoint), with the tempos fluctuating from blurred noise, to well-articulated pickings that’d have the guys in In Flames nodding approval.

And there’s a bit of melody. Odd how a roaring demon and a guy who probably won’t be able to speak in a few years can do a hellish duet, and yet there’s a melody with notes that, like, you can sing along to. There’s a flute in there somewhere amidst the chaos, but that could be my ears malfunctioning from overload. Lord Belial also provides moments of acoustic clarity; “Forlorn in Silence” being the most obvious example, but other songs have segments when a dancing acoustic riff flickers in the firelight, barely more than a hint, left like a retinal after-image of the sensory bombardment that is the rest of the album. A fine record, truly evil and innovative, and worthy of a thorough listen.