Lord Belial

Enter the Moonlight Gate

No Fashion Records, 1997

Review by Richard Stuart

This album has reinforced my faith in Black Metal. 'Enter The Moonlight Gate' is Lord Belial's second offering, consisting of 8 tracks and lasting almost 55 minutes (although this time it includes several minutes of silence between the end of the 8th song and a 'hidden' track). The packaging is a lot like that of Dark Funeral's 'Secrets Of The Black Arts' album - a glossy black digipak with a lyrics booklet tucked inside. That's not really too surprising, since both releases are on No Fashion Records.

Lord Belial's debut, 'Kiss The Goat,' was a decent album which showed a lot of promise. The band have more than lived up to expectations on 'Enter The Moonlight Gate,' coming up with better songs, more interesting ideas and a far stronger, darker sound. It's not particularly original, however - the band are Swedish, and have some typically Swedish Extreme Metal elements to their music. So if you really have no time for bands like Dissection or Dawn, then this album probably won't appeal to you.

I believe there are no keyboards used on this album - but there is some cello, flute and female vocals, handled by 3 session musicians. The female vocalist, Marielle Andersson, also happens to be the girlfriend of Dark (vocals and guitars). Thankfully, the usage of female vocals is very effective, used only when necessary and has clearly been well thought out (similar to Abigor's 'Nachthymnen' in that respect).

My favourite songs include the title track (which has some captivating guitar melodies, and halfway through makes very good use of the female vocals being sung simultaneously with the Black Metal style rasps), and the epic 'Realm Of A Thousand Burning Souls.' All the songs are good however, and I'd say to sum up this album is more than worthy.

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