Belenos - Chemins de Souffrance

\r\nAccording to the Celtic mythology Belenos is the god of the sun and warm sources that heal sickness. His name means "shining one" or "henbane god". In the Roman period he was identified with Apollo. So Belenos - the band - is close to the pagan aspect of black metal except that the additive "pagan" applies to the music of this French band only in the broadest sense because the amount of folkloriness or epicness is really restrained. First of all after some years of experimentations with several members Belenos is once again a one man project and the name of this gentleman is Loic Cellier. "Chemins de Souffrance" is the fourth full length album of the band and is comprised by two parts. The first chapter, "Allégorie d’une Souffrance (1-4)" is a re-established and re-recorded version of the ’98 demo of the same name, while chapter 2, "Les Chemins de la Mort", consists of brand new material. Their music is somewhere between Bathory, Borknagar, Helheim and even Burzum since this solitary fighter seems devoted to the old times and closely to the atmosphere of those bands.
\r\nThe opening track begins acoustically with narrative vocals and with a slight Primordial-like melancholy but soon enough a thunderous black metal explosion breaks in with some folk/celtic singing passages orient themselves to older Windir along with the common black metal shrieking while the instrumental parts that also exist here avoid somehow their nordish desire. Next track "Le Déchirement" sounds rawer and heavier with the guitars strongly rattling for approximately four minutes with a Burzum-esque flair directly from the core of the freezing land of Norway. "Funeste Et Hivernal" is mostly mid tempo along with some random blastbeats and a strong Bathory report from the "Hammerheart" era somewhere in the middle of the track. "Le Domaine Des Songes - Acte 1" is the last song from the old material and closes the first part with a musical exchange between blasting moments, enflamed with menacing guitars and harsh vocals, and soft, acoustic passages.
\r\nPart II of the album and the track "Barrad Du" begins with an almost nostalgic melody but very soon a sinister audible storm is kindled, advanced by a menacing voice - which is replaced at some moments by a choir - blistering guitar lines and furious drumwork. "War Hent An Ankou" follows and the tendency becomes more sluggish and infused with a gloomy swing. The riffs here are very brilliantly structrured and built the song with a really beautiful manner. The track "L’Enfer Froid" returns to previous patterns, a calm prologue, brutality that breaks loose, acoustics passages and choir parts that interplay with the black metal screams. The postlude "Veil-Noz" is a brief melancholic trip coming to its end with the keyboards in the background creating an almost psychedelic and rainy atmosphere.
\r\nWhat really surprised in this effort was the fact that the ten years of gap between the old and the new material hardly brought any important differences or change of style except a certain maturing process. Overall, Belenos has good ideas, speed changes, acoustic passages and dark modules and at times seem to meet the correct balance between earthly melodies and distorted black-metallic frostness. The sounds are varied and above all beautifully rhythmic. The riffing is quite interesting, the speed times are almost burdensome with blastbeats while one minute later everything becomes calm again in a way where those diverse sequences serve as well in order to built tension but without never really reach a desirable cresento. As a conclusion I would say that their new work possesses more sophisticated songs although a bigger compositional finesse would make things far better. Nevertheless the record has some really strong songs and partly some really seizing melodies! \r\n

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\r\nVaso Prassa \r\n

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