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BELEF :
INFECTION PURIFICATION

Candlelight Records has an impressive roster, with many exceptional extreme Metal bands. Unfortunately, France's Belef is not one of them. Oh, they are on Candlelight, and they are extreme, but "Infection Purification" is neither impressive nor exceptional ...discuss amongst yourselves. All kidding, and lame SNL references aside, the first full-length from this French Black-Metal quartet just leaves me baffled. The band has been at it for about eight years, but until now, their only output was a demo in '98, and a mini CD in '99 called "Deathwind Legion". I hate to just sit here and rag on a band, so let's take a look at the good aspects first. Well, there really aren't that many. First off, it's wickedly fast, almost on an insane level. Other than that, the only real positive is their album cover, which is one of the most non-PC covers I've ever seen. I've actually gone ahead and blacked out the most offending parts of the cover. Not because I'm a prude, but because I don't need geocities shutting me down for breaking their "no porn" rule. If it weren't for the last CD from Cattle Decapitation, 2004's "Humanure", I would have said that this was the best Metal cover I'd seen in years! If you haven't seen the banned cover for Humanure, hunt it down, it shows a cow defecating the remains of a person, truly sick! Anyway, if ya can't really tell from the scan above, the cover shows some fascist looking dudes, branding an inverted pentagram into the ample buttocks of a nude woman, who has been tortured, and is chained to some sort of alter. Just wait until your mother finds this in your CD collection. I got in hot water years ago when my mom found W.A.S.P.'s "F*ck Like A Beast" 12" single amongst my records. If she had found this, she would have probably had a heart attack! But, as stated earlier, once past the museum quality artwork, the music inside is sorely lacking. The band it seems is just playing as fast as they can from start to finish, with no rhyme or reason, or any sort of discernable song structure. It's just a blur of shrieking vocals, shrieking guitar, and unending blast-beats! The press release compares it to the early works of Immortal, Mayhem, and Marduk, which I think is quite the insult to said bands. Sure they were (are) all insane as well, but underneath that insanity were actual songs that could be differentiated from one another, and committed to memory. But hey, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just too old fashioned, I am getting on in years, and maybe I'm just not in touch with you youngsters anymore. But for my extreme listening pleasure, I prefer the soothing mellow sounds of bands like Emperor, Darkthrone, Carcass, Napalm Death, and the before mentioned Mayhem. How can you kids even call this music? This is almost as bad as hip-hop! Well, OK, I'm sorry, I went a little overboard there, nothing's that bad. For Black-Metal completists only. For more info, you can find these noise makers at belef-war.com.
RATING = 3 Black-Metal (Released 2005)

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