Misanthrope's Aurora

Before I get started fully I will get this out of the way. Hey Look! There is a guy on the cover, holding a stick that looks like an idiot.

If you actually made it past the cover art (which I assume the band did as a joke) there is actually a pretty good album underneath it. Beelzeb takes elements from early Ulver & early Darkthrone then mixes in several other progressive elements to really make something of interest.

The album opens with a very slow Darkthrone style riff, and then the spoken word vocals kick in for a while until first “quiet interlude” kicks in. After a while the vocals switch up to a more traditional harsh style. Sadly my only problem with this album is that the first three tracks pretty much follow that exact structure. The riffs are slow and hazy, the keys blend in nicely (and are by no means over produced), the drumming is secondary (and somewhat simple), the vocals have two consistent contrasting styles, however surprisingly the bass is audible and doesn’t sound like shit.

While the album remains pretty consistent for the first three tracks the fourth track is where everything wakes up a little. “Black Bottomless Lakelet” sounds much more aggressive than the previous tracks, the keys get much more violent, and bagpipes are brought in. The following track also steps away from the general direction of the albums previous ones, and takes a lot of elements from Bergtatt. Chants mixed in harsh vocals and mesmerizing keyboard interludes.

After the buzzing outro on the title track the album enters its final dimension of weird. A very repetitive drum less outro track with the same phrase repeated a couple times.

Overall this album is quite good and the band shows potential to really make something stellar. You can get this album pretty cheap nowadays, so I would suggest picking it up if you have money to spare.