Too Much Metalcore - "Blood Magick Necromance" Review (14%)
As the dying black metal genre tries to reorganize itself, bands recombine previous styles, trying to find the right formula from which a next generation of blasphemy could be birthed - similarly to what Burzum and Darkthrone did when they combined Bathory's epic narrative compositions with Incantation's taste for haunting atmospheres to give birth of what would later be known as Norwegian black metal.
Such is the case with Belphegor, which combines the late-model 'blasting black metal' of Marduk with the war metal of bands like Warkvlt and Archgoat to make a listenable but ultimately rather simplified form of blackened death metal.
Although it sounds schizophrenic, Belphegor also adopt the speed metal style of having vocals lead the guitars and mix into crude metalcore breakdowns, then into the rich heritage of power metal, including 1970s classic heavy metal melodic leads and galloping Sodom riffs, as on their previous output Bondage Goat Zombie.
Over this rants a death metal vocal done in the NYHC hardcore style of emphatic vocals instead of Tampa's flowing monotone style - think Corpsegrinder with Monstrosity - which accents part of each phrase instead of each accented syllable to fit the meter. There's also a bit of Swedish black metal vocals - Marduk, again - over the more flowing sections.
Luckily, no metalcore vocals, but Blood Magick Necromance is very much metalcore influenced in the way each song is composed.
Too Much Metalcore
If you want to understand the strength and weakness of this album, listen to the final track 'Sado Messiah' - it's a good resume and recapitulation of everything on the album Blood Magick Necromance.
It's purely vocally-driven Arch Enemy-inspired hard rock pretending to be black metal because it possesses the genre's superficial elements: blast beats, harsh vocals, tremolo riffs, distortion and 'satanic lyrics'.
But it's not black metal, as there is no overarching narrative development as there would be on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, Memento Mori or The Birth of a Cursed Elysium. It's not as bad as, say, Behemoth, but it's still close to metalcore to be enjoyable despite the instrumentation being competent.
But let's play Devil's advocate for a moment: not everything is bad with this approach, nor is everything worth throwing away on Blood Magick Necromance.
For instance, the fluid transitions from Soilwork verses into heavy tremolo-laden choruses manage to give each song a smooth and graceful feeling, even if the individual melodies seem completely unrelated to each other - as is unfortunately common with most heavy metal and hardcore hybrids.
Where this provides room for blackened death metal riffs to rise is in the replacement of breakdowns with a shift to slower, doom-like riffs from which melodic patterns emerge, and this paradoxically provides the real strength and weakness of this album: ranting choruses and driving verses give way to esplanades of traditional heavy metal leads, as on Storm of the Light's Bane, but eventually turning to bouncy groove as the vocals dictate the rhythm and song progression.
Ultimately, for black metal fans, the vocal-led Pantera-style chanting approach will get annoying very fast, as it detracts from the increasing momentum and deepening textural contrast that black metal, and blackened death metal in particularly, are known for.
Also, "Impaled upon the Tongue of Sathan" is actually just "Stranglehold" by Ted Nugent with tremolo picking.
But despite its flaws, most of which being due to the proximity of Belphegor's music to metalcore, Blood Magick Necromance is an occasionally enjoyable listen - much like Nargaroth, Satanic Warmaster, Peste Noire or modern Darkthrone can be.
Blood Magick Necromance score: 14/100.
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