Belphegor,... the demon who made people discover things according to demonologists. But
Belphegor is more known as the Austrian Black/Death metalband with an appetite for bloodshed, explicit and violent images and lightning fast tracks. With
Blood Magick Necromance (BMN), belphegor shows that they still can make some good, blastbeat-filled metal but this time they decided to produce the album smarter, and they discovered that they can do more than just blastbeating.
Before even the first track was heard, the album stirred up quite some controversy by its cover art: a severely mutilated goat.
Helmut himself stated that the cover has a meaning, but what I still don't know yet.
The first thing that is notable when listening to BMN, is its finer production than its predecessors.
Belphegor worked during this album together with the same producer of
Hypocrisy and
Pain, resulting in a more serious and professional approach of the whole concept. Second highlight in this album is the length of the tracks: they last for an average of 5 minutes, what is quite long for what we're used from these Austrians.
Helmut and Serpenth did other 'un-
Belphegor' things in this album. Where you were mowed down from your chair by the blastbeats and heavy shredding in their past albums, then offers this album a slightly more groovy approach. The familiar blastng and shredding remains but there is more melody and more groove than in
Lucifer Incestus, for example. the title track has some
Satyricon feel over it but it doesn't have to pay heavieness or speed for this. same can be heard in
Discipline Through Punisment. But
Belphegor didn't abandon their old ways:
Impaled upon the Tongue of
Satan and Sado
Messiah hit the gas pedal seriously.
this album offers a nice trade-off between fast and somewhat slower.
However, there are some less positive points too.
Belphegor is infamous by its voilent sexual lyrics but in this album they pushed that image even further. They made their 'visions' visual. The booklet you get in the CD or on iTunes is well, quite obscene, and certainly not fit for weakhearted or younger listeners. I'm used to violent images and not shocked. It does add a certain athmosphere to the album but certainly not everybody will think this. Personally I think helmut could come up with a slightly more discrete booklet. Same for the videoclip of
Impaled upon the Tongue of
Satan. Lyrically offers BNM nothing new: bloodshed, satanism and sex. So don't expect any soft lyrics but 40 minutes of raw bloodthirsty grunts.
To finish, I say that this is a good album that sounds better than its predecessors but the image and the lyrics are getting more and more extreme with every album. However if
Belphegor keeps this well produced sound, we can expect more of these great albums.
I give it a 16/20: Musically very good with some new directions taken but the design and the somewhat repetitive thematics bothered me a bit.
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