Belphegor - Walpurgis Rites – Hexenwahn (2009)

Every time I listen to one of Belphegor’s albums I’m blown away with the ability Helmut has of refining their already brilliant musical style. For those living under rocks or new to metal, this Austrian band plays a mean mix of Death and Black Metal that will put all other bands attempting to do this to great shame,

“Walpurgis Rites – Hexenwahn” is the band’s latest opus and a very worthy follow up to the bizarrely named “Bondage Goat Zombie” album. Belphegor is one of those bands that are like whiskey, they only get better with time.

Featuring nine hymns of total blasphemy “Walpurgis…” is one the most brutal and yet melodic releases I’ve heard this year, and while the album is very melodic it’s still in-your face as previous albums from the band. Each song has a plethora of brilliant riffs and catchy melodies both in guitar and with the vocals that will have you chanting along.

The lyrics of the songs are one of the best things of this album since they are very well written and interesting, and they go along with the music 100% something that many bands don’t pay attention to. The layers of vocals are top notch and give that diabolical feeling from start to end that only Helmut can provide to an album.

The riffing varies between Death and Black Metal style riffs, and Belphegor is one of the bands that can pull this off with extreme perfection. The drumming in this album is very brutal and well produced, every time that I’ve listened to this album I’ve been blown away on how clear they sound and complement the music.

There is definitely nothing wrong that I could find with this release: it’s the perfect length, it will appeal both fan of Death, Black and Melodic Death and Black Metal, the vocals sound very demonic (at least to me) and the production is stellar. The album features a very good balance of extreme parts with melodic parts and the song selection and ordering makes this album flow perfectly, once you reach the end of this album you will feel the urge of pressing play again and re-listen the whole album once more (I found myself doing this more than a couple of times).

Release: October 20, 2009

Country: Austria