Kosherat

Kosherat, The last album by the USBM legends Grand Belials Key and the only one featuring Grimnir Wotansvolk. This is most certainly the weak link in the GBK discography.

I'll be positive first, here are some of the good things about this album: The production is cleaned up (Not that it was bad before but I'm looking for anything to give this album points) and It has very strong moments riff-wise (obviously because its GBK). However, it has a lot taking away from it The songs as a whole are boring and don't really pack the same punch as on the two albums prior. It feels like a chore listening to this album at times because most of it is so generic compared to the two albums prior, by no means bad but it's certainly not special. It just goes on for far too long and all the songs sound the same, there are no real stand-out moments to me. I feel like if they cut out the boring parts of the songs and released this as a like 3 track mini-album/ep it would have been better in my opinion. Like I said, noting is inherently wrong with the music here but it is just so un-special I'm just left disappointed.

The song "Son of the Black Ram" really shows what I'm talking about that, it feels lifeless and lacks the energy you would find on a song like " The Tenderhearted's Manifesto" or "In Rapture by the Fenrir Moon". The band has lost a lot of their melodic edge on this album and end up playing more run-of-the-mill black metal than I could get from any band. They don't hit you back and forth with the tempo changes and the kickass guitar solos we are so used to with all the stuff before. The riffs are also weaker and less memorable compared to the other outputs from the band when you compare them. If I had not just listened to this album I could not tell you what one riff sounded like. They just don't stick to you like napalm like the other albums' songs. I guess if you are brand new to extreme metal and black metal this would be cool but if you have been in black metal for a while or have heard this band's other stuff you probably will be underwhelmed. This album is far more brutal than all the rest of what GBK has done in the past and that takes away from in my opinion, just because it's more heavy does not mean it's better.

All that being said there are very strong moments on this song, the end of "The Tricifixion of Swine" from the keyboard part really has a great atmosphere, and the guitar part at the end and leading into "Immaculate Latrine" is probably one of the most brutal moments in all of GBK's discography. In fact, Immaculate Latrine feels like it could be on an older GBK album and really holds the same atmosphere and sound. It is still a more brutal version of it but it has the same feeling and that's a good thing. It feels like a continuation of that same sound and it really works.

After that last paragraph, I would like to talk about the main issue, the album overall is really weak in my opinion, it's unmemorable and is lacking everything I loved about Mocking the Philanthropist and Judeobeast Assassination. I don't know what happened but it just does not do it at all for me. It's probably someone's shit but not mine. The lack of soul on this album is insane. The riffs feel half-assed most of the time and the two covers at the end absolutely blow. I can not remember a single thing from this album and each time I want to talk about it I need to listen to it in order to actually talk about it because it's that underwhelming. I don't know what the band's creative process was for this album but for me, this is the beginning of the end for GBK.

To be honest, I never liked Grand Belial's Key before this one. Nothing they ever recorded. This was the first album I ever cared for from them, and apparently the last. Only *insert deity here* knows what they have planned now, since Richard Mills, the only fitting vocalist for this band, has been long gone, and the band has hit "active" status once again...

Right from the first track, "The bearded hustlers", I knew this was going to be something of a huge magnitude. The music, technically, isn't anything to write home about, but everything's performed with such style, class and perfection, it will make any statue of religious figures weep blood instantly.

Musically speaking, GBK have always had their own style in black metal, mixing some hardcore punk atmosphere within deep and hateful black metal. How about MELODIES in a band that UG worshippers can agree with? All the music is "hummable", by which I mean that it's not entirely covered in 500% volume boost shrieking without content. GBK have always had their memorizable melodies, and with yet rather generic vocals, I couldn't think of anyone else to do the job as well as mr. Mills did.

The album only has two tracks I don't care about, both are cover songs of the band "Chaos 88"... Why? Well, they're too "punk" to suit the atmosphere of the rest of the album, which is entirely blasphemic in an entirely unique way. Take those two shorties out of account, you have the best 55 minutes of stylish black metal you could ever imagine. Completely anti-semitic, though I don't agree with just disregarding ONE religion at a time, GBK just completely hammers it's way to all new black dimensions. The mixing is completely unique, while the drums and bass have a smaller role on the final mixture, guitars and vocals do most of the work anyway. The ingenious, melancholic (despite it's violent nature) riffing on "The red heifer", "On a mule rides the swindler" and "Kingdom of poisoned fruits" make this album an essential piece to any black metal fanatic.

Writer's note : This opinion was formed soon after the release of the album, right before mr. Mills met his untimely death. It's not a piece to remember a fallen vocalist in all his glory, it's an honest opinion written before his early decay.

While the earlier two full-length efforts from the Virginia quartet rank among the finest US black metal albums of the last decade their latest outing, Kosherat, sees the band honing their fine mixture of black metal and death, thrash and at times even punk influences to an absolute tee.

The musicianship here is top-notch and the drumming in particular stands out as a vast improvement over their earlier material. There's no reason to expect any masturbatory soloing here, however, as the musicians utilize their skills quite tastefully throughout the album.

The song material here is for the most part excellent. Gelial & co. have managed to get rid of the generic fast-slow-fast song structure which sort of bogged down their previous album, Judeobeast Assasination. The songs on Kosherat are varied and have a nice flow to them (apart from the Red Heifer which suffers from a couple of not-so-impressive riffs and melodies), and are even catchy at times. Some of the songs here, such as the excellent Hobo of Aramaic Tongues, have appeared on the band's previous releases but don't sound out of place at all here.

The production is quite interesting. Gone are the heavily compressed drums and bass from Judeobeast Assasination and back are the soft, natural dynamics of Mocking the Philanthropist. Everything is in perfect balance and the album is extremely easy on the ears without sounding overly polished. The band also continue their tradition of unconventional cover art choice (by black metal standards) and lyrically they still seem to enjoy treading the fine line between quasi-biblical phrasing and nearly juvenile mockery of judeo-christian values, all delivered with a large dose of black humour.

Kosherat shows Grand Belial's Key further maturing musically and is easily one of my top 5 albums of 2005. Not to be missed.