Belial - Wisdom of Darkness
Review: In their impulse to slam together raw melody in otherwise dreadnought simple chromatic riffs, Belial saw a future for black metal in the complexity hidden within detail that defined the whole.
Similarly in this album the harmonizations which apply a melodic sense to an otherwise straight chord progression take on a great importance for their structural influence on the counterthematic riff which defines the chorus opposite the verse, as well as the overall theme of the song, usually following the three or four even intervals that define the chord progression itself. Lead guitars are strings themselves bent into a form of disparaging violence.
1. Intro
2. The invocation
3. Of Servant of Belial 
4. Lost souls
5. Rise of Hecate
6. Hypocrisy of the god's sons
7. Voices beyond
Muffled and subsonic, the barge of basslike vocals pushes a heavy wall of guitar and bass guitar against simple but effective heavy metal style drumming. Instrumentalism is competent, and although the music isn't complex, it requires a certain amount of talent to make something this basic take on as much fearful context as it does here.
Where these songs excel is in their maintenance of mood, usually through melody, and through doing that Belial have created a massive and foreboding album of darkness in motion.