The Seal Of Belial

Sometimes things take time to be done properly. Lord Belial recorded their new album in late 2003 at Los Angered Recording studios and did the mixing between Monday 12th to Thursday 15th of January 2004. Remember today what is the date ? The album was first scheduled to be released on June 21, but due to Anders Backelin's surgery and related complications, the band preferred to let him recover and therefore cancelled what was planned before the summer. The new album The Seal Of Belial has now been released on August 30th, which is almost one full year after they began the recording process. When I tell you that things may take time... I bought Lord Belial's Enter The Moonlight Gate which was their sophomore album, but honestly I had to dig the dust out of it as I haven't listened to it since... well it might be since the year of its release in 1997, or maybe once in 1998. The band has since released a couple of albums, Unholy Crusade in 1999 and Angelgrinder in 2002. The Seal Of Belial has little in common with their second album as it was a true black metal assault in the veins of Dark Funeral, although some of the tracks were filled with melodic passages, and more particularly the song Lamia which is probably what best can be done in melodic black metal. The band has slowed things down over the years to mid tempo and nowadays concentrates more on the feelings and on the atmosphere of their melodic black metal rather than on pure brutality and hysteria. The band probably aimed to be more attractive to a wider audience with this piece of heavy metal with black metal vocals. I doubt they might really succeed although they might grab a couple of Cradle of Borgir's followers if those are fortunate enough to put a hand on a sample. Lord Belial's material is definitely melodic, filled with atmospheres and moods and the description of black metal alone really doesn't match the style of the band anymore. Do you still call Immortal's Sons Of Northern Darkness straightforward black metal ? The Seal Of Belial is a solid mix of epic riffs and evocative rhythms, filled with majestic melodies, as well as first class top notch guitar soloing, although the songwriting might not be the most creative thing around and somewhat too generic. I hate to say so, but this is definite top notch for those not too narrow-minded to criticize without even bothering listening to. It is way over your average black metal releases and I really dig this mid tempoed heavy black metal stuff.