Back again from a long silence is The Black Lord Beleth´Rim of Torgeist, Amaka Hahina fame. Also from LLN fame in the mid 90´s. Now I got hold of this a few months back when it came out in June. I wanted to wait a few months to write a proper and objective review without sounding like a ridiculous fanboy, which I am.
One thing that I instantly noticed was Beleth´Rim´s knack for an eerie and disturbing intro, just like with the previous Vermeth release ´Your Ruin...´. However this intro isn´t on the same creepiness level as on Your Ruin..., Time Of Sabbath and Devoted To Satan. It has almost an eletronic sound to it, somewhat reminiscient of Amaka Hahina but more modern sounding. But after so many years of not hearing anything I was sure of a letdown. Surely this guy will go in the Meyhnach direction and use more clean production. Which I don´t like, especially when your best music was done in raw, lo-fi production. Happily, this was not the case when Suicide Or Be Killed came on. The production still had that ¨LLN¨ feel to it. Very raw and distant. To those who know LLN style music you know what I´m talking about.
Also which I liked is the use of a real drummer in the name of Valhgarm who plays for Svartfell and is also from the Aquitaine region as Beleth´Rim himself. Whether he´s just a local hired gun or permanent member remains to be seen. Either way I was pleased with everything so far. Then comes the song of the album in my opinion ´Ave Satanas´ which has a killer, thrashy, Vlad Tepes, style riff throughout the song. The song alone is good enough to warrant a purchase for the album itself, it´s that good. No need to worry about the rest because it doesn´t decline in quality. From The Depths... has a true classic black metal riff and feel throughout to make you nostalgic for the LLN heyday of the 90´s. Then comes another headbanger in ´Total Annihilation-Armaggedon´ which is another classic unto itself. Great tune and really catchy, kinda reminds me of the original slower version of Belketre´s ´The Dark Promise´.
Then to my absolute delight near the end I heard a re-make of one of my favorite Torgeist songs ´Flame Of Hate´. In no way does this re-make fall short of the original from 1995, In some ways Beleth´Rim´s voice is louder in the mix than the original version. His voice has slightly aged from the Torgeist days but in no way does it lose intensity, hatred and delivery. He still screams with the best of them and if anything he hasn´t lost a step, as opposed to Meyna´ch´s voice today compared to his 90´s vocal range. The Black.. still has the best voice in black metal in my humble opinion. This album loses a point because the intro and outro are not as good as on ´Your Ruin...´. But this album has to be considered for black metal album of 2008.
Lastly, to quote the man himself from the booklet, The Black Lord Beleth´Rim is the creature of the night, messenger of your doom. The Black Legions lives on! BE IT KNOWN! Motherfuckers.
Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwbYi2YvQvY
