Wisdom of Darkness

"Wisdom of Darkness" is the best Belial material. The band tweaked their style after releasing "The Gods of the Pit". The music on this EP is still predominantly death metal with a strong Deicide influence, but there is greater subtlety and mystery than before. There is now much more of a European feel, with some elements that bring Belial closer to the second wave of black metal, which was just beginning in 1992. The choice of cover art is one indication, being unlike any other death metal record I know of. There are several musical additions too, in the form of interludes, softer passages, keyboards, and whispered vocals. This is a deeper, more varied and interesting release than the demo and far more focused than the debut album that would follow ("Never Again").

Two of the songs here also appeared on "The Gods of the Pit". The new version of "The Invocation" is chunkier and clearer than the demo version. The drummer sounds like a beast on this song. He bashes the shit out of everything and then those lovely triplet-style riffs roll over the top (Vader would later perfect this method on "Sothis"). The re-recorded version of "Voices Beyond" is similarly crushing. This tune is faster and more chaotic, but locks into a similar rolling rhythm at exactly the right moment. The vocals are stronger on here than on the demo. Everything sounds more confident and forceful, but Belial have lost none of their bite.

The other songs are more interesting in terms of showcasing the band's new ideas. "Of Servant of Belial" is the overall highlight. This is the song where Belial throw every ingredient into the cauldron (an extended intro, an outro, hushed vocal lines interspersed with death metal vocals). It also has a repetitive and hypnotic feel which might draw comparisons with the emerging Finnish black metal sound (Beherit in particular). This is a fantastic song that sounds like no other death metal I've heard. It is the definitive moment of the band's discography. I only wish they had explored this territory on subsequent releases, rather than the cluttered approach they actually took on their debut album.

"Lost Souls", and "Hypocrisy of the God's Sons" are simpler, but retain the band's tradition of fast, evil death metal. The former song has a sinister vocal effect in the middle of the song. This bit would have sounded even better if they had extended it, but alas they return to the main tempo all too soon. The latter song has a slight black metal tinge to the riffing, with further use of hypnotic repetition in some parts. The last minute of this song introduces a clean, non-distorted section which sounds surprisingly mellow. It is clear that Belial wanted to move away from playing straight death metal at this point. These moments capture the band at the crossroads, blending their crushing riffs with a more varied approach.

"Wisdom of Darkness" will appeal to anyone who likes dark, evil, old school death metal. Personally, I would take this EP over the big American death metal records of 1992 in a heartbeat (it is much better than "Legion", for instance). This should also appeal to those interested in exploring the second wave of black metal. You could even credit Belial as having pioneered something here, given that no-one else was making this strain of blackened death metal at the time. Over the course of the next few years, many other bands made the journey from death metal to black metal. "Wisdom of Darkness" shows a band beginning that journey and doing so in a more natural and organic way than most. It is a shame that Belial failed to complete the journey, and that they failed to recapture the essence of this record on their subsequent output.

I usually base the review title on a thread or theme that the release calls to mind; era, style, philosophy and the like. If no such thread is forthcoming, I will simply refer to how it makes me feel. And in the case this EP, that feeling is amoral, animalistic rage. It exists in that rare strain of intensity that can only be reached by combining the most primal elements of black metal with grindcore, elevating the unadulterated primitivism of the latter, with the foreboding majesty of the former. It’s a style that is hard to maintain over the course of a forty odd minute LP, as Impaled Nazarene’s first clutch of albums demonstrates. But over short distances it can be formidable.

Finland’s Belial released ‘The Wisdom of Darkness’ after a couple of demos, all the way back in 1992, and what a curious specimen it is. Sharing clientele with the more well known but ultimately more clownish Impaled Nazarene, the music of Belial at this point was an altogether classier act. It is at once overbearing and brutal, but menacingly atmospheric and dark at the same time. How is this achieved? Well, the most superficial of listens will reveal music that looks like death metal of the Demigod variety: heavy, powerful, and lumbering.

Every aspect of the production seems tailored to achieving this result. The guitars are all low end, what solos and leads are present are buried in reverb. The drums are given a similar treatment. The snare does a pretty good impression of cannon fire echoing in a large sports hall. And of course the vocals are a deep, guttural death metal growl, at once aggressive yet brooding. Everything hangs tight enough together however, to allow Belial to play at breakneck speeds while just maintaining coherence. The scant tempo changes announce themselves with all the bravado these musicians can muster, as if willing the entire track to collapse in on itself in chaos.

Aside from these all too rare breakdowns, the music is pretty much blast-beats and tremolo strumming throughout. This creates a dense but pleasing wall of foreboding noise, as tritones and minor keys collide together, aided by the brief appearance of strings and choirs. Despite the full and undeniably heavy experience this amounts too, ‘Wisdom of Darkness’ is a strangely empty, solitary experience. The fact that it borrows from death metal, black metal, and grindcore respectively is only part of the story. The use of keyboard interludes, occasional whispered vocals, spoken word intros, and event an extended clean guitar outro, creates an aura of space between the blocks of crushing yet ambient noise that is the bulk of this music.

‘Wisdom of Darkness’ is a forgotten treasure of old school extreme metal of the early 1990s. A romp through dark aggressive metal with a uniquely cavernous atmosphere all of its own.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

The debut album from Belial on Austria's Lethal Records is, without question, one of the heaviest Black/Death Metal albums I have ever heard. It starts off with a creepy little intro, then smashes into a re-recorded version of, in my opinion, Belial's signature track, "The Invocation." This version is much heavier and darker then the one that appeared on their "Gods of the Pit" demo, as Belial added more spoken word interludes and hoarse whispering to the mix. After this, Belial rips through 20 minutes of some of the most intense music in the history of the underground scene. This album just rages along at a breakneck pace, and doesn't let up fast enough for you to catch your breath. My only small complaint is the length of this album, but that is minor in comparison to what Belial does with the little time they have here.

On a side note, this release featured 2 different covers for some reason. The original (which I have, and which is the rarer of the 2) was a rather cheap looking, almost xerox'ed scene of a mountain landscape in the woods, with a black moon hovering in the sky, in black and white, with some blue here and there, and the band's logo in blue in the upper left hand corner, and the album title in the lower right hand corner. The second cover was the hand holding whatever that is in the photo, with the album title in white in the upper right hand corner, and the band logo in red in the lower right hand corner. I have no idea why this was done, other then perhaps only a limited number of copies had the original artwork.

This album has been long out of print, thanks to the thieving bastards that ran Lethal Records. However, I have seen 1 or 2 distros still carrying it (with the second cover artwork), and I'm sure there are a few traders out there with it as well. In any case, pick this up at all costs if you can.