Belial Arisen

Black Funeral has always seemed to be hit or miss for me. I either love their work or find it unlistenable. Belial Arisen is the first Black Funeral album that met an in between. I think this album is the worst Black Funeral album when it comes to production. However, once I tried listening to it as if it were dark ambient, it really changed the entire experience. Let's give this album the review it deserves. This is Belial Arisen by Black Funeral.

I really like the instrumentation of this album. Although it sounds a bit simple, I don't think music needs to be complex in order to be good. The guitars are mainly just power chords. There's also a lot of dark ambience created by the keyboards. I'm not entirely sure if there is bass in this album. If there is, it's extremely hard to hear due to the production. The drums don't really do anything special. It's mostly blast beats throughout the entire album.

The vocals are honestly nothing special either. They're just fry screams with seemingly no technique or effort put into them, which is honestly disappointing to me, because I feel like vocals play a huge part in the atmosphere of black metal. However, what the vocals lack in atmosphere is made up for by the atmosphere of the instrumentation.

There's really not much else I can say about this album. Production is something I never care about, but when it's hard to hear certain things, then it's just disappointing. I don't think this is a good black metal album. It's definitely not a good Black Funeral album either. However, if they went in a more black ambient direction with this album, I feel it would have gone over a lot better. I have no favorite tracks. The best thing this album going for it is the ambience. The worst is the production.

This really takes a few listens to get the hang of. Any Black Funeral release, for that matter, is really not suitable for the uninitiated, nor is it intended for the so-called untrained ear. I give this a very high score due to the absolutely overwhelming atmosphere this album conjures after several spins. Listen closely and you too will hear what I’m talking about.

Black Funeral is primarily a one-man band, and it has been previously stated that the artist, Michael Ford, recorded this album many years ago, and added the lyrics more recently. From the first track, one is struck by a decidedly up-tempo tone, guitars careening ‘happily’ along, with a non-varied drum track (machine?)… but things get very chaotic and dark once the vocals enter the fray. The artist evokes a shrieking style of vocal delivery that sounds as if every fiber of his essence is channeled into the mike. Not quite the ‘white-noise’ vocals that appear on the previous “Empire of Blood”, but more articulate and much more guttural. We’ll get to more of that later.

What really took away from a near perfect score for this album, however, is the absolutely horrendous recording. No, we’re not talking some lo-fi cult recording effect which, in some cases, adds to the experience. We’re talking about some serious errors in the recording room. First off, there is a noticeable bass reverb that wavers back & forth on the first few tracks, and unless you have superior bass response on your speakers/headphones, you will notice A LOT of distortion, which makes it somewhat un-listenable. Secondly, on track 2 especially, the guitar track wavers in & out, sort of like how a thoroughly used cassette sounds as it becomes thread-bear. Truly piss poor, but if you can manage to overlook these shortcomings, you’re in for a real treat.

Things begin to get REAL dark with track 2, Book of Belial. The guitar track on this is some of the darkest and most atmospheric I’ve ever heard. This is where BF truly shine, and the artist does indeed know how to lay down a gnarly and memorable riff (I think of Trey from MA when I’m listening to this..). And the keyboards begin on track 2 as well, and has already been mentioned, they play a very minor but altogether effective role in conjuring a very grim, spooky, and nether-world portrait. The keyboards have a real gothic feel, and completely complement the music, i.e. does not overtake the structure of the song at any time.

But back to the vocals… this is where I became hooked on the album, and still sends shivers upon me. If you listen carefully especially to tracks 1 and 2, there is such anguish in the vocals (way beyond any Burzum-esque experience), bursts of sheer aggression, and what makes it even more spooky is the “other” vocals you hear, that of what truly sounds like a demonic monster in the booth adding horrific low-end growls.

Favorite songs… ‘Book of Belial’, for sure, and the almighty ‘The Crimson Dragon’. Crimson Dragon has one of THE BEST riffs within the genre, and is a real beast of a track.

This is amazing material. Not for everyone, but a definite for the hard-core vet willing to expand their horizons. I actually own the edited cover art version, and think that this is a much more fitting image than the absolutely vile one that was discontinued (banned).

Seeing how no one has reviewed any Black Funeral albums, I thought I’d give people new to this US black metal band a little insight before spending their cookie jar savings… Belial Arisen is the fourth full-length release of the band – though contrary to most USBM post-2000, this doesn’t mean that they’ve only been around for three months. In other words, Black Funeral is not following the trend of multi-releasing - in some cases up to five albums in one year - Instead, this newly reformed band concentrates on spilling their musical talents into one release at a time.

When I first heard BA, I had great expectations, as I had heard a couple of their songs on the internet, and I was looking forward to my first album-encounter with the crusaders of “Grim Medieval Vampiric Black Metal”, as they used to refer to themselves. It starts out pretty well, with some moody songs, especially “Anti-Christ Rising”. So what does “moody” mean? Well, in this case I’m referring to the monotonous guitar pace and the low frequency of variation in riffage, most people already listening to black metal are familiar with. Combined with a dark room and a few candles, this can be highly effective if you’re in the “mood”.

This is not an album I’d recommend to the “untrained ear”, (someone not used to listening to black metal). It really takes some time to get used to.
The album’s biggest weakness in my opinion is the fact that Abaddon’s voice is pretty bleak and very faded at times. Combined with the usual black metal guitar-distortion, this almost drowns out his voice at times. The drums on this album is nothing special, as I am sure they were not intended to be. They are just there, without much focus on them; and at times they almost sound like something most people could make on a drum-machine. The very blurred keyboards did it for me, though, as this is one aspect where the style of the album really fits well; no grand classically-inspired keyboards tones – the keyboards are not even given the weight of i.e. Xasthur; instead they are just backing the rest of the instruments in a discrete, yet successful way. Also worth mentioning is their “wind effect”, in particular on the last of the seven tracks – “The Crimson Dragon”

All in all, this album is very lacking in technicality, but I’m still giving it a relatively high score due to the atmosphere they manage to create. Black Funeral really does have their moments on this album; especially the aforementioned “Antichrist Rising” and “The Red Dragon”.
If you want something a little different from the rest of the US scene these days, buy this album. Save your money if you’ve already gotten half-a-dozen bands you want to explore as well…