Necrodaemon Terrorsathan

Belphegor is a band that has essentially been established as one of the main pillars in the blackened death metal subgenre. Formed in 1992, they have released 11 full-length albums and have helped to define and advance the fusion of death and black metal without leaning too far in either direction. Necrodaemon Terrorsathan was originally released in 2000 as their third full length, and now, 20 years later, it remains relevant to this day. The remastered album contains a modern re-recording of the title track as the band prepares the world for their next album.

Belphegor waste no time in assaulting the listener with pure unadulterated chaos, tremolo riffs bearing a touch of melody similar to Dark Funeral paired with the technicality and rhythmic elements of death metal. This is the story of Necrodaemon Terrorsathan, each song exploring a different aspect of this sound fusion with each track delivering aggression and speed in abundance. The slower sections such as the middle/ ending of the title track, and brief parts of Tanzwut Totengesange bear resemblance to some of the 90’s American death metal acts. Though sounding somewhat similar to their peers (in the best ways possible), Belphegor still forged a new and unique sound of their own which many younger bands have tried to replicate, and their influence cannot be stated enough.

Although there is not a ton of variety between the tracks, the quality of the music and the masterful way of blending two quite distinct genres stands out amongst other releases in the 2000s. The modern production makes this slightly more accessible to a younger audience who may not have been old enough to be part of the scene in the 90s/2000s. The mix sounds crisp, the drums thick and holding the weight of the guitar melodies quite nicely. It sounds very full and encompassing and does the tracks justice. Overall, this album represents Belphegor well, and the majority of their discography is flawless. The band remained on an upward trajectory since this release, gaining worldwide acclaim with this and subsequent albums, and remastering Necrodaemon Terrorsathan in 2020 was a great way to remind the world they are and have always been a force to behold.

I don't know if people still do this today, but Necrodaemon Terrorsathan is one of those albums I bought solely based on the cover art. I was flipping through CDs at a local store back in 2000 or so and saw this one. I honestly figured it would end up being terrible, despite the cool, if over-the-top, cover art.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I played it later that day. To this day, I think Belphegor has a very distinctive sound. Is it death metal or black metal? One could make an excellent case for either. Most bands will usually fall more on one side of the line or the other, but it seems Belphegor has managed to really ride that very blurry distinction between the two.

Then there is the relentless, brutal nature of the music mixed with the frequently melodic riffing. A good bit of this is due to the barbaric pounding of the drumming. The drumming allows the band to utilize these memorable, and rather singable, melodies without the sound making a turn for the more accessible-- it just keeps attacking the listener, chasing away anybody that doesn't get it. Relentless though the drums may be, Belphegor knows better than to just let the drummer do one thing non-stop through the entire record. Instead, things are varied up with different rhythms and speeds. Not that the drums (or the band in general) ever really take it easy or anything like that. All of this gives these songs a sense of movement-- they feel like they are going somewhere, rather than just going on for a couple minutes and stopping, followed by the next song which does the same damn thing.

Now, I am not saying every song sounds really different, as that really isn't the case. They don't all sound the same, either, but they do sound fairly similar overall. It is the small variations to tempo and rhythm, along with the melodic elements that help the songs stand out and be something memorable. Basically, Belphegor isn't necessarily a band of great depth, but there is some. Enough to elevate Belphegor well above the pack of similar bands.

Necrodaemon Terrorsathan is probably the album where every aspect of the sound Belphegor has become known for was finally in place. Last Supper was a bit more in the death metal camp than the black metal camp and featured a different vocalist, then Blutsabbath featured a more black metalish approach on the vocals by Helmuth than the ones that would follow.

A couple of weird moments of note, now. If you get déjà vu at the beginning of this album, it is just because it starts off the same way as the first Black Sabbath album. I don't mean the fact that they both start off with storm sounds, but that it is the same recording of storm sounds from what I can tell, although it goes on longer at the start of the song "Black Sabbath" than it does for the song "Necrodaemon Terrorsathan". Then there is the start of the final track, "Necrodaemon Terrorsathan Pt II/Outro: Analjesus" (colorful song titles this band comes up with). It kicks off with a keyboard sound called the "orchestra hit" which sounds a bit weird when used by itself. However, the band soon kicks in and it is actually a really good song, but it did always catch me off-guard way back when.

If you like very aggressive death/black metal, check out Belphegor, and if you dig Belphegor, this is one of the key albums by the band to have in your collection.

The fault lines between black and death metal have always been a curious place. In one sense artists operating in this realm do exactly what they say on the tin; marrying the soaring melodrama of black metal with the disjointed staccato aggression of death metal. But taking a broader, historical view, it shines a light on the evolution and cross pollination of artists at key junctures and in key scenes. Setting aside all the disputed claims to these terms in the late 1980s and early 90s, they did coalesce into clearly defined styles regardless of areas of crossover and any claims Cronos tried to stake on the term ‘black metal’. But out of the mid-1990s came a move to sharply reject the rigid genre demarcations that were bedding in, with many artists implicitly or explicitly identifying as simply ‘extreme metal’. There’s always cause for suspicion when an artist is too vocal and specific about how they wished to be defined; like a fifty year old insurance salesman with a sports car, they’re probably overcompensating.

Pillars of Austrian extreme metal Belphegor were one such example of this, eking out a boisterous niche for themselves on the peripheries of blackened death metal. Although churning out many albums over the years which gradually incorporated deathcore and pop into the meatier mixing jobs, the essence of their sound has remained largely unchanged over the years. Jumping back to 2000 with the release of ‘Necrodaemon Terrorsathan’, we see them adopt a more explicit death metal influence. But what’s noteworthy is how this genre alchemy plays out with just a select few different ingredients to a Dissection or an Absu say. Belphegor borrowed elements from tech-death in the vein of Nile and blended this with a more traditional black metal framework. But such is the schizophrenic nature of tech-death, especially at the turn of the century, that the end result is disjointed and unfocused, now matter how forcibly it pertains to be otherwise.

A random and jagged riff salad passes our ears in monotony, bound together by the loosest of aesthetics hell bent on satisfying both brutal and crushingly evil aesthetics. The problem is that none of this means a damn thing while the riffing is so unfocused. Average tremolo picked guitar lines constructed of spare parts from whatever Marduk had lying around are curtailed from blossoming into anything meaningful, owing to the constant slam-in-corpse-paint breakdowns that prevent this music from developing beyond a series of blunt suggestions. ‘Necrodaemon Terrorsathan’ is the equivalent of a horror novelist constructing a narrative by selecting post-it notes of unrelated quotes, chosen with no other metric than edginess in mind. It would be almost farcical were it not for the fact that this style became so typical of the broad definition of extreme metal, with the help of Behemoth of course.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to call this metal by focus group. Production must be raw, but not so raw as to alienate a broader audience, and it must capture the brutality of the riffing. Vocals have to be an evil sounding version of the typical death metal style that was so popular in the early 1990s. Drums have to be technical, but also sound a little DIY to fool the funderground crowd. Chuck in plenty of tritones, tremolo riffs, and some breakdowns to get the mosh-pit going, polish and press, ready for mass production. The trouble is it succeeded. Belphegor hit the bullseye of what the casual fan was after, and they were rewarded accordingly. With ‘Necrodaemon Terrorsathan’ and the clutch of releases that followed, Belphegor were at the apex of the bell curve (or the Belphegor curve if you will) for b-tier extreme metal, before their lack of artistic vision became so pronounced that even the shit munchers smelt a rat.

At the time of this release extreme metal at a fork in the road. Hack up the legacy of what had gone before and stitch it together into a commercially viable product, one that’s brutal enough to fool some tourists into thinking they are buying into an underground movement; or drag the tired rudiments of the previous decades into more ambitious and fully formed versions of themselves. We all know what really happened and we all know it was too predictable to bother lamenting. But that shouldn’t prevent us from calling out the shallow sleight of hand that was albums like ‘Necrodaemon Terrorsathan’.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

Austrian death/black metal band Belphegor is back with their third release, titled Necrodaemon Terrorsathan. This band has been around for nearly ten years and shows no signs of softening their approach. It is still fast brutal technical satanic death at it’s finest. With messages like “keep your country clean, burn your local church,” prominently featured at their website, it is obvious they are not looking to adopt any of the current trends. they are still competing with Marduk in the offensive album cover category, but this one is actually toned down from 1997’s Blutsabbath art.

If one looked at the packaging or at their costuming it would be fair to say old school black metal, but that would be selling them short. What they are is brutal death mixed with ultra fast black with a technical aspect unusual for both. When I think of brutal death I don’t think of musical complexity, but these guys do. Not only do all the overused adjectives for extreme metal apply to Belphegor, they actually seem inadequate here. The musicianship is excellent, and the vocals, often a weak point for extreme bands, are outstanding. They refer to their vocals as grunts and growls. The main style is an excellent low growl in the death style with black metal feeling. They are among the best “satanic” vocals I’ve heard and they make me envision a biped goat with a microphone.

At thirty five and a half minutes, the album is short, but their are no weak songs. “Necrodaemon Terrorsathan” “SBSR” “Cremation of Holiness” and “Necrodaemon Terrorsathan part II” all stand out, but the album is strong from beginning to end, one of the best of 2000. If you are a fan of past Belphegor releases or a fan of Dark Funeral, Marduk, Dissection, etc. this release is destined to be in your CD player permanently.

Originally written for http://teethofthedivine.com

This is indeed an underrated piece of metal art. Sadly, while being so great, Belphegor was/is rather unknown outside of Austria, hell, even in Austria they are far too unknown.

So, this was their 3rd full-lenght release and at this time, their best. It was also the first album with the great drummer "Torturer" and the first Belphegor album with a good production(the older ones weren't horrible underproduced, but not comparable to this new production).

The album is pretty fast(not as fast as Lucifer Incestus, though) and stays on this pace almost all the time. Which is not exactly a bad thing, because Belphegor know how to do their shit well, especially at this high speed.

All songs on here are great, except one does stick out as not being as good as the others: Tanzwut Totengesänge. The vocals in the slow verses are excellent, but sadly, they drag on too long and in the fast parts the vocals don't really flow with the rest of the band and it just sounds a little missplaced to me.

Yet, this album showed what Belphegor's future would bring = The perfect fusion between Death and Black metal.

(Check out the low budget video of "Vomit Upon The Cross", it's funny as hell!)

Choice cuts: Diabolical Possession, Necrodaemon Terrorsathan, Cremation of Holiness

Mediocre songs: Tanzwut Totengesänge

Raw Sewage: No, not here.