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Belzebubs - Pantheon of the Nightside Gods

It's been a while since I reviewed a straight up metal band, and considering this blog has "metal" in the name, I figured I better do it. That being said, I haven't been listening to a lot of metal recently, so I figured I'd pick something fun to review to make it easy on myself.

Example of a Belzebubs comic
(Click to enlarge)
Just like Gorillaz, Belzebubs is a cartoon band, but unlike Gorillaz, Belzebubs is a black metal band and is based off of a comic strip. I think Gorillaz has a comic too, but I believe that their comic didn't exist before the band itself. The Belzebubs comic was very popular in the metal community for a while before the band was formed, and is a comedic mockumentary style slice-of-life strip about the members of a black metal band and their families. It was pretty good, I even bought a physical copy of the book! (Check out their website here, and their tumbler here for the merch store and comic strip).

When I first checked out the band's music, I was expecting it to be some kind of parody, or otherwise comedic novelty band, similar to Dethklok, but was pleasantly surprised to see that the music wasn't taking a comedic tone, and the band was creating genuinely great music (not to say that Deathklok didn't create a lot of genuinely great music). They even recruited Niilo Sevänen, the lead vocalist of the Finnish melodic death metal band Insomnium, to sing as Sløth. For music videos, they got the artist/writer of the comics to create some amazing animations, often parodying the music videos of the band Immortal, from which they also take musical influences. I especially like this because I love animated music videos, and Immortal is my favorite black metal band.

Band members (Left to Right):
Obesyx, Hubbath, Sløth, Samaël

The first song on the album, "Cathedrals of Mourning," is probably my favorite. This is also one of the songs with a music video (watch the video for "Cathedrals of Mourning" here). It's pretty funny and features the the band playing on the top of a ski slope mountain. I think this video might be referencing Immortal's "All Shall Fall" music video, in which the band is also playing on top of a mountain (watch "All Shall Fall" music video here). Musically, Belzebubs is kind of on the fringe of what can be considered "black metal". This is because their music is very melodic, including things like "song structure" and "competent instrument playing". Basically pop music. Not really. This particular song is one of their catchiest. It starts with a brutal scream/growl from Sløth, it has this intense Gothic melody, and a sweet guitar solo. Definitely worth the listen.

Sløth with his family
My second favorite song on this album is "Blackened Call". This is the other song on the album with a music video (watch the video for "Blackened Call" here). This video also parodies Immortal music videos. Specifically, at 0:56 and 2:46 in the video, they are definitely parodying Abbath, the singer/songwriter of Immortal's, infamous "crab walk" that he does in the "All Shall Fall" music video I linked above. This whole video is also parodying a lot of early black metal bands who had home movies of themselves running around in the woods as music videos (for an example of this, watch Immortal's "Call of the Wintermoon" Video. It's actually hilarious, they wear wizard hats, breathe fire, and run around in the woods and some ruins. Watch it). I'm assuming there's a lot of references to other black metal bands in both of the videos, which I'm not catching, so be on the lookout for Easter eggs! Out of all the songs on this album, "Blackened Call" is probably the one closest to traditional black metal. Its got more blast-beat drums, its got more droney guitars, and its got less deathy vocals. The black meal sound is combined with a triumphant synth melody and another guitar solo to create another awesome catchy song.

Those are the most notable songs, but there's a lot more good and interesting songs throughout the album!
Obesyx recording in the studio

"Nam Gloria Lucifer" is another song that's not too far from traditional black metal. This one goes for a more dreary sound. "The Crowned Daughters" is a slower song, with a haunting folky breakdown. "Dark Mother" is an awesome death metal song with complex, techy, riffs throughout it. I might even go as far to call it a tech-death song. "Pantheon of the Nightside Gods" is one of the grandest songs on the album, which makes sense since it is the title track. It sounds like it has a full symphony orchestra and coir. I'm not really a fan of the clean vocal segment on this track, it sounds out of place, but it's short enough that it doesn't do much damage. The track ends with a long, beautiful symphony instrumental.

Overall, I'd say this is a fantastic album, a great introduction death and black metal, and a wonderful comic.

I hope they make more comic metal bands like this. It's pretty cool.


Rating: 8.5/10
Favorite Tracks: All

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