Do you love Altars of Madness era Morbid Angel and can’t wait for the second coming of Sadistic Intent? Then clearly you absolutely have to own a copy of this album. In fact, you should already own copies of this band’s other two albums as well. Some have called this the shitty Belphegor (preferring the Polish band Belfegor instead, I guess…) but hey, when you’re the first, you’re the first. In fact, I don’t really see how anyone can consider this band “shitty” when there is so much inferior quality stuff on the market that supposedly shares the same genre as this band. I’ve heard plenty worse and just because another band decides to use either the same or similar name to theirs, I don’t think it justifies the name-calling. In fact, there is enough old-school Death Fucking Metal on this album to snap the necks of all but the most jaded of Death Metal fans (and you’re never going to completely satisfy those folks anyway). The sound on this album is a bit on drum-heavy side but not to the extent that it makes this a blast-beat Rap album (where all you can hear is drums and vocals). The guitars are still there, still brutal and there’s enough feeling to make up for the fact that none of the stuff on this CD hasn’t been done before by Morbid Angel, Death or (insert the name of your favorite old-school Florida Death Metal band here).

My only previous experience with Belphegor was about a year back when I heard just a couple songs from their release Blutsabbath. I didn’t get to hear enough of their music to form a solid opinion of this band one way or the other. After spinning Necrodaemon Terrorsathan my opinion is definitely solidified. This Austrian outfit is magnificently brutal! What we have here is an amazing display of heavy Death Metal with an obvious Black Metal foundation. The guitar melodies lean more towards the Black Metal end of the spectrum while the vocals and drumming are clearly of a Death Metal nature. Belphegor’s sound blends elements of Marduk, Myrkskog, and recent Behemoth to create a blasting assault armed to the teeth with hatred and aggression. Make no mistake though, these guys aren’t stealing ideas or riffs from the aforementioned bands. They are listed here simply as a point of reference. Necrodaemon Terrorsathan has more than its share of originality and creativity. So much so, in fact, that I’m surprised I haven’t read more about it in the many zines I collect. I’m a little puzzled with the production. I can’t make up my mind if it favors the Black Metal side or the Death Metal side. Either way, I am very pleased with the way it turned out. This is yet another band whose back-catalog I’ll be investigating because the new release is so incredible. If I’m not mistaken, they have 2 previous releases - Blutsabbath and The Last Supper. Releases like this latest effort by Belphegor are a major reason I live for extreme music. You’ve got to hear this!

Not to be confused with the Belgian band Belphegor, this Polish trio of speed-demons assail your ears with an sound not unlike Immortal’s masterpieces Pure Holocaust or Battles in the North. Now that I have your attention, Belfegor is a lethal reminder that not all Black Metal bands are embracing the electronic age (e.g. Mayhem, Ulver, DHG). Hell no! The Kingdom of Glacial Palaces, the band’s debut, is a non-stop barrage of pure, ice-cold fury. Thunderous drumming, scathing vocals, and mayhemic guitar-riffing solidify the attack. Great production, too. Though these guys may not score points for originality, their execution is dead-on!

Their most brutal and straightforward album so far, Satanica sees this band turning in a very militaristic, rapid-fire drum based approach to what might be best described as Black Grind. The precision level of these songs is utterly off the scale, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they’ve used a drum machine to achieve this level of laser-sharpness. More or less the only thing I can find to bring this down is the not-awesome-but-still-okay “hidden” extra track.

This is the second album by this Minnesota band and unlike their debut, this one actually shows their WP/NS roots. The first disc was pretty much straight-out Black/Death with a Norse influence in the lyrics but Under the Blood Banner comes out of the White Power closet with a vengeance. For those who haven’t heard of Before God, this band is a side project of the veteran White Power Hardcore band Bound for Glory (who have numerous albums available, though finding one at your local record store might not be easy). This album is much more Black Metal (Bathory / Burzum / Darkthrone) oriented, though lyrically Under the Blood Banner has nothing remotely to do with Satan or anything evil. The more Viking stuff is comparable to Darkthrone playing the music of Under a Funeral Moon but using the lyrics from Bathory’s Hammerheart or Twilight of the Gods. I also got the impression that the lyrics for half of this album were written independently of the music because the flow of delivery is just not there. The other half of the album fucking rules because they have the music and the atmosphere and the vocals totally in synch and everything clicks. When things don’t click, the songs sound disjointed and even annoying at times. In terms of consistency, the debut was better. Under the Blood Banner is more experimental in stretching their musical style, but there are still major kinks to be worked out. This is a valiant effort but Before God still has a long journey to complete before they can turn out an album that is a certifiable masterwork.

This is the third release by Macedonian Dark / Black Metal stalwart Baltak, and like their previous album, we are once again treated to a long laundry list of reasons why Greece stole everything from Macedonia. The inlay has some great maps and a lot of info about how Greeks oppress Macedonians and the whole thing is kind of interesting. One thing however… I understand that this band is passionate about all of this Macedonian independence stuff but really, what the fuck does it have to do with any of the material on their CD? If this were a concept album or even one long nationalist rant set to music, I could understand all of this. But it isn’t and I have no idea what any of the songs mean, except the translations of the song titles into English. Musically, this is some ultra-fast Dark/Black Metal that is hard to classify. I’m hesitant to classify this as Black Metal because Satan is notably absent from this album (as he was on just about all of Baltak’s albums so far). Another thing I noticed is that the inlay says a live drummer was used, but if this is a live drummer, I want to know what drugs he’s on that allows him to play this fast without missing a beat. The speed factor hurts Baltak a bit because it makes a lot of their songs sound kind of one-dimensional. The good news is that the ultra-blasting stuff doesn’t comprise the whole album. Things get slowed down a bit every now and then but never really fall below “fast” (as opposed to “ultra-fast”). Even with that, the songs tend to sound the same and it’s then that you realize that Baltak has essentially re-released their previous album with better sound and a few new twists. If you have to buy one Baltak album, I guess this is the one to pick up, but if you already own the other two, this isn’t all that much different than what you already have.

This is more of a CD-single than EP, I suppose, with just one new song, two versions of the title track, and a CD-ROM video for “Sol Niger,” which is pretty cool if you have the equipment to view it. If you need just a little more “Death Rock” than was provided on King Fear, here you go. For major fans of the band only, since there’s not exactly a lot of bang for your buck here. Still, I like what there is.

This was a major disappointment for me. Axel had showed such an improvement between the The Ballads II and Oceans of Time that I was expecting another impressive display of melodic Power Metal. It was not to be. Gone is the style and maturity that made Oceans of Time such a great album. Axel has returned to the cheesy Glam Metal formula that reared its ugly head on The Ballads II. The Masquerade Ball is pretty much just as bad. Stay away from this dud.

Yeah, I know that reviewing this is sort of hypocritical. If any other mag did this, I would probably be up in arms about their lack of journalistic integrity. Face it, it’s hard to be objective about a band whose album you just released. How can I pull it off, you ask? Well, for starters, since I fucking paid $14 for this at a fucking record store, I think I have the right to say what I think about it. I’m pretty sure that Ray would have given me a free copy if I asked for it [I sure would have! -Editor], but I believe in supporting labels by actually paying for their releases. Anyway, on to the review. Avernus is probably the most underrated Atmospheric Doom band in the world today. If this retrospective look at their early days is any indication, I’d have to say that 90% of the record labels out there must have had their heads up their asses if they missed out on this band. Seriously, they’re that good. For a retrospective look at their demo days, this is one of the heaviest releases I’ve heard in a long time. There is a lot of My Dying Bride in the earliest material, but at the same time, the later material takes that influence and runs with it. There is some Eastern musical influence on the post-Sadness material and some Dead Can Dance begins to make its way into their sound around the 6th track. All of that comes together to make this a really solid, heavy CD that packs more depressive feelings in one place than the Prozac line at your local mental ward.