Review of Black Funeral - Belial Arisen

This is a re-release on Behemoth Productions, the first release by that label. Black Funeral is a thing of the past, having long ago devolved into dark ambient industrial noise. This material was recorded without vocals in 1996. The vocals were added in 2000. This is very poor sound (on purpose) very simplistic playing (on purpose?) and obviously a tribute to early Mayhem and Darkthrone. Also obviously, it is not original at all. The songs are not bad but not good, they simply exist, nothing to get excited about. The drumming is very simplistic (of course) and the drum sound is horrible, but mostly the music is simply boring. Black Funeral was always a band that thought itself more important to the scene than it was and this release is obviously meant to satiate the appetites of the rabid faithful clamoring for their copy of this masterpiece. Is this the last of Black Funeral? Now back to Psychonaut75 and the ritualistic ambient nonsense? We can only hope. By the way, “Belial Arisen is the unearthing of darkness in flesh, the wolf and dragon united.” The best song is “Varcolaci” with better drumming, more emotion and some actual arrangements musically. I actually enjoyed the album but it certainly does not equal any of the releases that inspired it.