Ritual of the Demon-King Belial. The ritual was a part of the Open Project in October 2015. The following workings can be performed separately or as one ritual. Each part of the ritual contains different elements, attuning the practitioner’s consciousness to the Nightside current flowing through.
![Into The Woods Of Belial Rarity Into The Woods Of Belial Rarity](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/fxgAAOSwwXJdduC9/s-l300.jpg)
Woods of Belial runs a high risk of being known as the oddball side project of the Sorvali cousins, a tumour on the side of Moonsorrow. But whatever the genre of this little oddity might be, it's definitely not a sidekick of Moonsorrow. No, while Moonsorrow already had two full-lengths under its belt when Deimos XIII was released, it's a rather valid claim to say that the work on Woods of Belial was done before Moonsorrow's real breakthrough. This band is an entity of its own, and despite the shared creative resources with the better-known band of the Sorvalis, Woods of Belial is not to be considered an experimentation by established artists. No, it's an original piece of work, and so far removed from the other works of the brothers that the band should indeed be introduced to newbies without a bias-inducing mention of the other band.
The album is not an easy thing to listen to. The music is desolate, echoing, and heavily ambient industrial metal. Comparing the sound to other artists is difficult, but perhaps a simpler, more industrially oriented The Axis of Perdition without samplings could work, and of the less-known artists, the local Apocryphal Voice might be a closer comparison. In any case, the riffing and drumming are minimal, the keyboards ethereal, and the atmosphere dreamlike. The synths weave a layer of ambience and add some disturbing horror movie soundtrack on top of the whole. The industrially straightforward guitar and drum work combine with two layers of synths, and the production makes the whole sound detached; you are locked in a room in an abandoned industrial building, and whatever is producing the sound is in the assembly hall next to your little holding cell. You can hear everything that takes place, but there's a drywall between you and the source of the sound, and it damps down the individual instruments, the vocals and the lyrics. The result is a thick pulsating mattress of sound, leaking through the wall with the intention of smothering you, but still far enough to sound more ominous than actually threatening. The metal has been dipped into a vat of thick, viscous ambient coating, and the aggression has been covered with a blanket of minimalism, strange and scary emotions and distant alien sounds. There is anger on the bottom, but the whole has been turned into a muffled scream of pain by the ingenious production. The stuff of mechanical nightmares in the distance, in other words.
In a more concise form, this is industrial metal blended with a really hefty dose of very dark ambient.
The whole works on a single level: atmosphere. Individual instruments on this album never do anything noteworthy, and there are very few special spots worth mentioning on the 51 minutes of music. No, this is a piece of work that needs to be ingested as a holistic experience. It is a procession of strangeness, and as the oddity disappears into the ambience of the last track, the topmost memory of the album is simultaneously tempting and foreboding. It's hard to listen to, even harder to like, but it has a characteristic that makes you want to listen to it again. It's like a rewarding nightmare, an adrenaline rush you won't find in an amusement park, and an otherworldly experience that leaves much to be digested.
Forget everything you know about the musical portfolio of the Sorvalis, and listen to this if you enjoy industrial metal and dark ambient with a heavy crushing feeling. This album is not to be enjoyed, it's to be experienced. Recommended with a caveat to the reader.
The album is not an easy thing to listen to. The music is desolate, echoing, and heavily ambient industrial metal. Comparing the sound to other artists is difficult, but perhaps a simpler, more industrially oriented The Axis of Perdition without samplings could work, and of the less-known artists, the local Apocryphal Voice might be a closer comparison. In any case, the riffing and drumming are minimal, the keyboards ethereal, and the atmosphere dreamlike. The synths weave a layer of ambience and add some disturbing horror movie soundtrack on top of the whole. The industrially straightforward guitar and drum work combine with two layers of synths, and the production makes the whole sound detached; you are locked in a room in an abandoned industrial building, and whatever is producing the sound is in the assembly hall next to your little holding cell. You can hear everything that takes place, but there's a drywall between you and the source of the sound, and it damps down the individual instruments, the vocals and the lyrics. The result is a thick pulsating mattress of sound, leaking through the wall with the intention of smothering you, but still far enough to sound more ominous than actually threatening. The metal has been dipped into a vat of thick, viscous ambient coating, and the aggression has been covered with a blanket of minimalism, strange and scary emotions and distant alien sounds. There is anger on the bottom, but the whole has been turned into a muffled scream of pain by the ingenious production. The stuff of mechanical nightmares in the distance, in other words.
In a more concise form, this is industrial metal blended with a really hefty dose of very dark ambient.
The whole works on a single level: atmosphere. Individual instruments on this album never do anything noteworthy, and there are very few special spots worth mentioning on the 51 minutes of music. No, this is a piece of work that needs to be ingested as a holistic experience. It is a procession of strangeness, and as the oddity disappears into the ambience of the last track, the topmost memory of the album is simultaneously tempting and foreboding. It's hard to listen to, even harder to like, but it has a characteristic that makes you want to listen to it again. It's like a rewarding nightmare, an adrenaline rush you won't find in an amusement park, and an otherworldly experience that leaves much to be digested.
Forget everything you know about the musical portfolio of the Sorvalis, and listen to this if you enjoy industrial metal and dark ambient with a heavy crushing feeling. This album is not to be enjoyed, it's to be experienced. Recommended with a caveat to the reader.
Before the black metal craze hit Norway, death metal was the underground music of choice among that country's rebellious youth. A surprising number of Norway's premier black metal bands from the mid to late 1990's once experimented with downtuned guitars, guttural vocals and horror lyrics at the turn of the decade. In the case of Emperor and Ildjarn, this was in the form of Thou Shalt Suffer. The band quickly parted ways after just a demo and 7', but thanks to tape traders and the re-releasing of this material on CD their legacy continues to make its mark on the death metal maniacs of today.
'Into the Woods of Belial' was a low-budget demo tape originally released in 1991. The copy I have was recorded directly from the original cassette, but the sound quality isn't very good - especially when compared to the CD reissue. The volume levels are low, the highs drowned out and the production in general is very muddy. Luckily, these problems were all fixed on the re-release. It's amazing that they were actually able to make this recording sound clear. The drumming is a bit high in the mix on the CD, but that's just a small price to pay when you compare the two versions side-by-side.
Musically, this demo is a maelstrom of darkness, dissonance and unfathomably haunting melodies. Yes, it is death metal, but of the most evil and atmospheric variety. You can't compare this to the half-serious, horror-influenced stuff that fellow countrymen Old Funeral or Phobia (pre-Enslaved) were coming up with at the time. This material is pure and dark, and it will make your skin crawl. One of the main elements that really sets Thou Shalt Suffer apart from other Scandinavian death metal being released at the time is their dynamic use of keyboards. These eerie melodies weave their way through the songs, often going against the main guitar leads by burrowing their own paths through the maze of blasphemous chaos. Ihsahn's vocals are immeasurably sinister. His deep, demonic growls originate from deep within the bowels of hell before being spit out like burning venom onto a virgin's pale flesh. His voice, like a thousand rabid frogs croaking in unison inside an abandoned, festering sewer is unlike anything I've ever heard. Although, I suppose a more throaty and drawn-out Antti Boman would be a reasonable comparison.
Each song transitions perfectly into the next, with the intro beautifully setting the mood for all the evil within. In general, there is a fast tempo used throughout the main branches of each composition. Blastbeats from the drummer are frequent, but unfortunately the double-bass during the slower parts is virtually impossible to make out. The chorus of 'Chimera Dimension' is one of the few exceptions to this - it's here where you can really feel the furious pounding of the double-bass drum. All five songs are filled with energy and memorable riffing, but the highlite of the demo is probably 'The Goat of a Thousand Young'. The chorus riff is fucking monumental. At the end of the day, I can honestly say that a song like this is darker than anything Emperor or Ildjarn have ever recorded.
As for the negatives, the main complaint would have to be the sloppy production of the original demo. Another problem worth mentioning is the poor mix of the lead guitar during the solos - you can barely even make it out. That, and the double bass drum needs to be brought out a lot more. It's unfortunate that they weren't able to fix these things for the CD release, but in the end they're not significant enough to ruin the listening experience of this bloodchilling piece of music.
'Into the Woods of Belial' was a low-budget demo tape originally released in 1991. The copy I have was recorded directly from the original cassette, but the sound quality isn't very good - especially when compared to the CD reissue. The volume levels are low, the highs drowned out and the production in general is very muddy. Luckily, these problems were all fixed on the re-release. It's amazing that they were actually able to make this recording sound clear. The drumming is a bit high in the mix on the CD, but that's just a small price to pay when you compare the two versions side-by-side.
Musically, this demo is a maelstrom of darkness, dissonance and unfathomably haunting melodies. Yes, it is death metal, but of the most evil and atmospheric variety. You can't compare this to the half-serious, horror-influenced stuff that fellow countrymen Old Funeral or Phobia (pre-Enslaved) were coming up with at the time. This material is pure and dark, and it will make your skin crawl. One of the main elements that really sets Thou Shalt Suffer apart from other Scandinavian death metal being released at the time is their dynamic use of keyboards. These eerie melodies weave their way through the songs, often going against the main guitar leads by burrowing their own paths through the maze of blasphemous chaos. Ihsahn's vocals are immeasurably sinister. His deep, demonic growls originate from deep within the bowels of hell before being spit out like burning venom onto a virgin's pale flesh. His voice, like a thousand rabid frogs croaking in unison inside an abandoned, festering sewer is unlike anything I've ever heard. Although, I suppose a more throaty and drawn-out Antti Boman would be a reasonable comparison.
Each song transitions perfectly into the next, with the intro beautifully setting the mood for all the evil within. In general, there is a fast tempo used throughout the main branches of each composition. Blastbeats from the drummer are frequent, but unfortunately the double-bass during the slower parts is virtually impossible to make out. The chorus of 'Chimera Dimension' is one of the few exceptions to this - it's here where you can really feel the furious pounding of the double-bass drum. All five songs are filled with energy and memorable riffing, but the highlite of the demo is probably 'The Goat of a Thousand Young'. The chorus riff is fucking monumental. At the end of the day, I can honestly say that a song like this is darker than anything Emperor or Ildjarn have ever recorded.
As for the negatives, the main complaint would have to be the sloppy production of the original demo. Another problem worth mentioning is the poor mix of the lead guitar during the solos - you can barely even make it out. That, and the double bass drum needs to be brought out a lot more. It's unfortunate that they weren't able to fix these things for the CD release, but in the end they're not significant enough to ruin the listening experience of this bloodchilling piece of music.