Lord Belial
Nocturnal Beast

This is my first "serious" review, I hope to do a decent job as my first try. 

And my first review undoubtedly goes to one of my absolute favorite black metal bands, Lord Belial, formed in 1992 and disbanded in early 2009 due to a hearing problem of the drummer Micke Backelin.

They play a very melodic black metal, which has gradually evolved, even reaching black/death episodes, sometimes with vague doom influences; the latter is the case with Nocturnal Beast.

This is not just any black metal album: of course, the titles are a festival of stereotypes, but it's known that Lord Belial has never been the pinnacle of originality when it comes to inventing song titles (and, to be honest, not even lyrics, although some are truly beautiful).

With Nocturnal Beast, the Swedes, one could say, experiment a lot; instead of the usual relentless black metal, they try to play a more "refined" black metal, where almost all songs are mid-tempo, very well done, and this can be easily heard from the brilliant opener "Succubi Infernal", where the not so high speed of the song enhances the evilness of Thomas Backelin aka Dark's scream, all enriched by brilliant bass lines (because it is indeed brilliance).

I don't intend to write a song-by-song, but I can't help mentioning episodes like "Desolate Passage", which has some of the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard in a black metal album, and it moves me as very few other black metal bands can.

It's certainly not new in this field, but it's not that frequent to find solos in an album of this genre, and I must say that solos are indeed one of Lord Belial's strongest points, noting that I usually can't stand solos.

One of the negative points of the work might be this originality, being entirely composed of mid-tempos, the fact that it could become tiresome in the long run, but, although this band is not certainly innovative, this album is still an excellent alternative to the usual blast beats done at 300 BPM, and in my opinion, these guys' riffs never get boring; many find this album simply adequate but not exceptional, and I don't understand why such a particular and, in its own way, brilliant work is criticized, starting from the cover.

However, one thing I am sure of: if Lord Belial had not disbanded, I would pray for more similar albums.