Band's List Black Metal Beliar (GER) Far Beyond...

5 years after the demo album, Beliar slithers up out of the shadows with a second creepy album. Contrary to the profile on SOM, the booklet shows that Beliar is a one man black metal band. Illunis Nocte handles the vocals and all of the instruments. He's from Deggendorf, Germany, which is about 25 miles west of the Czech border in Bavaria. The album cover depicts what looks like a grim reaper standing in a wheat field, holding a scythe.

The German translations that I tried to get online didn't work out very good and usually didn't work at all. So I could be wrong with my rough estimate of how I tried to interpret the name of the first track, Fremde Macht (wiederganger), into "the strangers return." There are sound effects that sound like rustling vegetation, with the whistling sound of a swinging object, while someone is screaming out in pain. This must have been meant to be a portrayal of the grim reaper (as depicted in the album art) in action. Then after a minute of this, the music breaks out with dark shredding, that sounds a lot like the style of Necromantia. There is a grim and mysterious interlude, then it resumes back to the dark and melodic shredding. These lyrics are in German. Rising hate has an energetic tempo, with a chilling melody. It's very intense and reminds me of early Burzum. Although the song comes short of 3 minutes in length, it sounds a lot longer, because it's so rich with melodic thrashing.

Eyes Shut has a powerfully driving melody, that's got a dark mood. Ovbiously this song was inspired by Darkthrone. It's a great black metal song. The lyrics are about being blinded by darkness. Habergoass is another intense song, it thrashes very powerfully. It's rawness reminds me of Black Funeral. Malefizschnoin takes off thrashing with a style similar to Darkthrone, then it's pace slows down with Geezer Butler styled bass playing. Track 6, Melancholic Night Of Rising Sorrow, is a hypnotic guitar ballad. It's a weary 6 minutes long. This song makes the difference from my rating the album an 18 instead of a 20. That song is contrasted by the explosiveness of Rest In Eternal Sleep. This song shreds darkly at a very fast tempo. It sounds like necromantia. It's very melodic, with very fast drum playing. Like A Curse That Lasts On My Soul, starts with the sound effects of a rain shower, and then starts with a hynotic guitar ballad. Then 2 minutes into the song, it starts to shred with a ghostly avant garde melody. It is chillingly intense. It does come across with a similarity to Burzum.

There are plenty of great hate songs on this album for the true black metal fans. Illunis Nocte is a multi-talented artist, who is skilled in all aspects of the performances on this album, and more importantly, in the songwriting. This release would be an excellent choice for fans of Burzum, Darkthrone, Necromantia, or Black Funeral. This is the best album from a one man black metal band, that I've heard in about 2 years.