Lord Belial - Enter The Moonlight Gate (1997) ☠

Country: Sweden

Language: English

Genre: Black Metal

Label Number: NFR 020

.FLAC via Florenfile

.AAC 256 kbps via Florenfile

☠: Selected by Buccaneer

© 1997 No Fashion Records

Reviewed by "Sargon the Terrible" for Metal Crypt.com

Lord Belial have a weird history. So much of their catalog is disposable, and some of it is genuinely crappy, but then there is this — their epic, powerful second album Enter The Moonlight Gate, which is unlike anything they have made before or since. Like Satyricon, just this once they got everything right.

This album shines both with the diversity of the sound and the quality of the riffing. Powerful guitar work fuels songs with a lot of dynamic and epic sweep, highlighted by melodic interludes and acoustic instrumentation, including the fully instrumental "Forlorn In Silence". Here Lord Belial showed off a complex and total grasp of composition, combining heaviness, grimness, and slow-grinding power into masterful works like the savage, flute-accented "Lamia" and the crushing "Black Winter Blood Bath". Subsequent LB albums have tried and failed to recapture the magic of this one black shining star of evil. I don't know what the band did right to create this, but they have unfortunately never done it again. This album may well mark where the second wave of Black Metal became the third wave, and no collector should be without it.

 tags: lord belial, enter the moonlight, 1997, flac,