Belphegor – Blood Magick Necromance (2011)

On Belphegor’s 9th full-length studio release we found a very interesting dilemma, this album sounds crushing and in the same vein as the last few albums of the band, but yet we seem to be falling asleep while listening to it. While the band sounds as good as ever, we think that there is a big chunk of soul missing in this release.

“Blood Magick Necromance” features another 40 minutes of Blephegor’s brutality and technical proficiency in the shape of devilish compositions that will rattle Christian souls, but it also lacks the raw energy and power they used to have in their earlier days. We have to agree that the album is not bad, but it’s by far one of the best of the band, since it seems like 70% filler and 30% ‘good shit’ only.

Since “In Blood – Devour This Sanctity” we see that the band keeps their sound mixing mid-tempo riffing assaults with brilliant speed-up sections that has made them such an effective band in the past few albums. But here we also see the lack of interest since this song sounds very dull after a few listens. Yes, the guitars are great, the drumming is massive, and the vocals give you the chills, but it just doesn’t feel right. We would have definitely picked a different song to set the mood in this album, like the bestial track “Impaled Upon the Tongue of Sathan”, by far the highlight of this release.

Moving through the songs we have some nice moments in “Rise to Fall and Fall to Rise” as well as “Blood Magick Necromance” but seem to be very far in between, allowing this album to start dragging after just a few songs. The atmosphere on the album’s title track is pretty solid and is probably what saves this song a bit, but the circling riffing and drumming make you start losing your nerves after the first go, but the solos are nice.

The album starts picking up with “Angeli Mortis De Profundis”, “Impaled Upon the Tongue of Sathan” and “Posessed Burning Eyes 1997”, but we are sure that some people will stop listening after the first 20 minutes. These songs are a bit faster paced, completely evil in atmosphere thanks to the vocals, and overall better than the first 4 songs. As a hectic closer, we have “Sado Messiah” our second favorite song in this album and a worthy song to end this release in a high note.

There is not much to be said about this release, we are sure fans of the band’s ‘newer stuff’ will surely appreciate it more. Also the occasional Death/Black Metal worshiper might find it amusing, but don’t expect too much. Hopefully the band takes some time to re-focus (instead of doing 100’s of shows a year) and come up with something better in their next delivery.

Release: February 8th, 2011

Country: Austria