• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

I want to like this more than I do. Enter The Moonlight Gate is one of my favorite BM albums, but I have to admit that album was made a long time ago, and Lord Belial has changed a lot in the last twelve years. This is their eighth studio effort, and while it has a really bitchin' cover, it's not the great album it wants to be.

Lord Belial are kind of veering a bit into modern Darkthrone territory with a more stripped-down sound. That's not to say this is punky at all, just that the production is very bare-knuckled, with upfront guitars and not anything really backing them up, for a more pugilistic sound. That said, they do embark on some lovely melodic tremolo rips here and there, and they sound way better than the rest of the album. Vocals are uninspired, and the constant clickety-clickety of the drums is kind of annoying. The songwriting is pretty direct and often faceless, with little variation and not much individual song identity. Except for the aforementioned melodic breaks, the songwriting is not anything that will grab you. The guitars are upfront, but the tone lacks bite and texture.

I found this to be a listenable but extremely uninspired album of modern Black Metal. This is much better than their last few discs, but still nothing to get riled up about.