Miley Cyrus Plays Black Metal - "Totenritual" Review (2%)
Let's get something out of the way, Belphegor were never a good black metal band.
At their peak, they - like Archgoat and Dark Funeral - barely managed to be acceptable Phantom/Beherit clone acts, with increasingly frequent and significant metalcore elements making their unfortunate appearance in some of their later releases.
Belphegor's least bad album was perhaps Bondage Goat Zombie, despite its reliance on Metallica/Slayer/Sodom speed metal tropes that go nowhere.
Every album since Bondage Goat Zombie has been a step down for the band, and with Totenritual they unfortunately manage to reach a new low.
The band keeps their unique sound, a mixture of Fallen Angel era Phantom, Onward to Golgotha and modern Marduk, but the real problem on Totenritual is the pop rock inspired song writing.
Belphegor were always reliant on a verse/chorus simplistic structure, their songs being mostly a more or less elaborate excuse for blasting, but there are limits to how stupid you can get and still call your music "black metal" or "blackened death metal".
Totenritual is at best generic war metal, at worst Miley Cyrus pop rock with angry vocals and distorted guitars.
Miley Cyrus Plays Black Metal
There are pieces of some songs that stand out but as whole, the vast majority of Totenritual's tracks are bland, pop rockish, and ultimately distasteful to the point of not wanting to listen to them ever again.
As I said, Belphegor were always average and always far too close to metalcore/pop rock to be honest, but at least there was some effort put into their music. On Blood Magick Necromance, for example, the song "Sado Messiah" is unashamedly stadium rock of the worst kind, but at least its listenable and there was some, albeit distant and vague, relation to extreme metal music to be found.
Nothing of the sort on Totenritual, this album is pure Miley Cyrus worship. And it's boring.
The song "Swinefever - Regent of Pigs" has some interesting speed metal rhythms - which is about the best we can expect from Belphegor - but I have not much desire to listen to it ever again. On "Spell of Reflecting" they turn into a third rate modern Immortal clone, at which point there is nothing left to do but write off this album as the pop metal turd it is.
Totenritual is the reason extreme metal fans turn to Miley Cyrus, annoyance at the mediocrity that comes out of the modern war metal scene.
There's no reason to listen to this when you can get the much more interesting and memorable The Birth of a Cursed Elysium, or any other black metal album that doesn't sport its Miley Cyrus influences so openly.
Totenritual score: 2/100.
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