ALBUM REVIEW: Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods – Belzebubs
Cartoon outfit BELZEBUBS are black metal’s answer to DETHKLOK you never knew you needed. The brainchild of Finnish cartoonist J. P. Ahonen, comic strips featuring a close knit black metal outfit running the day-to-day gauntlet of marriage, raising kids, holding down a job and keeping the band ticking over, have been doing the circuit on social media since 2016, complete with a fictional discography. However, 2019 sees BELZEBUBS transition into a multimedia brand of entertainment, with a very real debut album courtesy of Century Media Records. Are the monochrome kvlt offering something new and interesting to the already-crowded market with their debut album, Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods?
Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods is a pretty mammoth debut offering in more ways than one. Clocking in at 53-minutes-and-change, BELZEBUBS take the listener through a huge and immersive soundscape, bringing far more into play than the standard guitar/bass/vocals/drums combo. Throughout the album, choir-like vocals, clean singing and a subtle, but present, use of orchestration all bring a dark, brooding tone to the furious blackened death metal assault, adding to both Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods‘ immersiveness and fun factor. Further, BELZEBUBS do a grand job of mixing epic, more atmospheric tracks with a more substantial run-time with shorter, punchier offerings, keeping things interesting as the record progresses.
In fact, Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods is pretty evenly split between longer, brooding songs and shorter, to-the-point blasts. The record is bookended by two songs from the former camp; lead single Cathedrals Of Mourning and the mammoth title track. Cathedrals Of Mourning perfectly sets the tone for the musical journey to come, opening with beautiful orchestration before diving straight into frostbitten, melodic black metal, complete with a subtle operatic tone running under the chorus. The opening track spends much of it’s six-minute run time dropping hooks all over the place, ensuring no listener forgets what BELZEBUBS are capable of. Where Cathedrals Of Mourning was oodles of fun, Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods is much darker. Just a few seconds shy of nine minutes, the closing song starts with just under two minutes of melancholy drenched orchestration before the lead guitar and drums kick in, leading to a section far more death metal oriented than much of BELZEBUBS‘ other offerings. The chorus sees some stunning clean vocals, and the hauntingly beautiful orchestration takes centre stage, leading the album to an emotional climax.
The other two epic-length tracks, Acheron and Dark Mother, are well placed in the track-list, spreading these more cinematic moments throughout Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods. Acheron begins with some absolutely stunning, IRON MAIDEN inspired guitar work, building to a short blast of thunder before this incredibly catchy motif is repeated. Again, BELZEBUBS show themselves as experts at writing big, catchy hooks that refuse to be forgotten. Meanwhile, Dark Mother, the album’s longest track at 9:15, brings something far more furious to the table, moving seamlessly between savage black metal and more melodic, atmospheric sections, with a healthy dose of virtuoso soloing thrown in for good measure.
Among these longer, more immersive moments, Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods shows BELZEBUBS are more than capable of delivering shorter, more crushing blasts of melodic blackened death metal. The Faustian Alchemist is simply huge, drowning in melody and instantly memorable, while Blackened Call and Nam Gloria Lucifer are pure DISSECTION-worship at it’s finest. The Crowned Daughters comes in hard from left field, easily the most melodic moment on the record with wonderful, OPETH-esque clean singing taking centre stage for much of the track, it’s final moment of brutality leading nicely into Dark Mother. Penultimate track The Werewolf Bride keeps things short and to the point, again channelling DISSECTION and showcasing BELZEBUBS are their simplest and most ferocious before the closing title tracks sees Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods home.
Gimmicky? Sure. But look past the 2D nature of BELZEBUBS, and Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods is a furious blast of chilled, melodic black metal that rightfully stands head and shoulders above the majority of the genre. Black metal gets a bit of bad press for being overly edgy, but it’s possible not to be immersed in the fun of BELZEBUBS‘ debut – it ticks all the right boxes: it sounds frostbitten and grim, the riffs are ripped straight from the DISSECTION and NAGLFAR playbooks, the orchestration is present enough to add atmosphere, but subtle enough that it isn’t overpowering. But the whole presentation is just far more fun than any black metal band has a right to sound, and in such a serious genre, BELZEBUBS demand your attention all the more for it.
Rating: 9/10
Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods is out now via Century Media Records.
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