Lord Belial - Revelation
I remember being distinctly unimpressed with Swedish black-Metallers Lord Belial's last album, 'Nocturnal Beast'. A band who used to unleash incredibly heavy, melodic and interesting black metal had seemed to stray into the tepid waters of mediocrity and sameyness. Gone were the interesting leads, replaced by guitars that can only be described as 'jangly', so, it was with some hesitation that I put on their new album 'Revelation' to see if they had improved in the intervening time since their last release.
There is much more of a visceral, raw and of course more natural feeling to the song writing on this record. The latter parts of 'Vile Intervention' and 'Aghast' are delicious slices of brutal black-death metal and are very well put-together. Whilst the band show good craftsmanship on these songs however, they do lack some of the more interesting touches found on earlier records such as 'Angelgrinder', female vocals and the odd exciting electronic element have been dropped in latter-day Lord Belial for a more conservative approach to the genre, which is a mixed blessing.
Unfortunately, although the band have regained their "oomph" power and have started making music that can again be described as [I]heavy[/I] metal, they still have one thing: the dreaded jangly guitars on tracks such as 'Gateway Oblivion' and 'Black Wings of Death'. It's understandable and perhaps even admirable that Lord Belial want to have clear and audible leads, something many black metal bands fail to pay much if any attention to, but the sound and production chosen for their leads simply makes this attention and care to detail go horribly awry. To put it simply, soft guitar lines of that sort Lord Belial offer these days is not what I listen to this genre for.
Overall then, this album is nonetheless a considerable improvement on 'Nocturnal Beast' but with some significant shortcomings. The songs are more compelling, more listenable than before, yet are also more irritating for their remaining problems. Whilst 'Revelation' isn't exactly a new beginning or turning point for the band, it does hint that Lord Belial still have some great releases to churn out and that they are a band far from done. This is not an essential black metal release, but will be good news for any fans of the band disappointed with their more recent work.