Belphegor: Blood Magick Necromance – new album

Austria's blackened death metal band BELPHEGOR is unleashing its ninth album, ‘Blood Magick Necromance’, upon Europe today, January 14th, 2011 and will be preparing North America for the time when the armies of the dead return from February 8th, 2011 on with some help from Nuclear Blast Records: “Accept it: our world is necessarily haunted by evil, and when the armies of the dead return with their pestilence to annihilate the living, there will be no better guides while traveling down the fiery road to the endless abyss of Hell than BELPHEGOR,” says BELPHEGOR. Click here to watch the video for ‘Impaled Upon The Tongue Of Sathan’ on Bloody Disgusting and listen to BELPHEGOR's music here (Facebook):

BELPHEGOR: Blood Magick Necromance – courtesy of Nuclear Blast Records

BELPHEGOR: Impaled Upon the Tongue of Sathan – courtesy of Nuclear Blast Records

Helmuth (Lehner) founded BELPHEGOR in 1991 in Salzburg, Austria, in order to play some “supreme death black metal art”. The band that was known as “Betrayer” until 1993 consisted of vocalist and bassist Maxx, guitarists Helmuth and Sigurd, and drummer Chris. Though quickly gathering fan base in their homeland, BELPHEGOR had to wait nearly a decade before their efforts crossed borders and were released internationally. The group released their first studio album, ‘Last Supper’, through Lethal Records  in 1995: “Following their own path of sin and befitting their ever-evolving anti-religious, anti-life attitude, BELPHEGOR's logo gets revamped to incorporate two inverted crosses completely surrounded by blood representing the slaughter of Christians and martyrs,” explains BELPGEGOR's official bio. Second album, ‘Blutsabbath’ (Last Episode Records), followed in 1997 and ‘Necrodaemon Terrorsathan’ in 2000: “Stagnation means death! The band spreads their disease once again, logging yet another volume of blasphemy added to The Vatican Library,” BELPHEGOR continued to spread the venom. ‘Lucifer Incestus’ (2003) and ‘Goatreich – Fleshcult’ (2005) were both released via Nuclear Blast Records: “We don’t give a fuck about anything and don’t let anyone talk us into doing anything. Only the music counts!” They kept on raging against the Catholic Church and promoting the apocalypse in the name of Satan on 2006's ‘Pestapokalypse VI’ (Nuclear Blast):

“Believe it or not, even hardened death and black metal fans feel the need to come up for air every once in a while, and, since we’re talking among friends here: what’s the point of enriching ‘Pestapocalypse’s “greater concept” by quoting the Marquis de Sade, Goethe, or even the Devil himself (in French, German, and Latin, no less), when all that comes across is unintelligible grunted gibberish? Hey, at least NILE goes for broke and writes its grunts in ancient Egyptian - which is unintelligible gibberish no matter how you slice it!” [wanted to know Eduardo Rivadavia, AllMusic – more here]

BELPHEGOR: Seyn Todt in Schwartz – courtesy of Nuclear Blast Records

BELPHEGOR: Bluhtsturm Erotika – courtesy of Nuclear Blast Records

“With their seventh album, suitably entitled ‘Bondage Goat Zombie’, the death/black metal institution crushed all their previous releases! The concept of the album was inspired by the infamous Marquis De Sade (1740 – 1814), giving the lyrics of the album a blessed touch of Evil.”

“The track that BDSM clubs would probably be the most likely to play is ‘Sex Dictator Lucifer’ which finds BELPHEGOR slowing down the tempo and getting into a more industrialized, somewhat WHITE ZOMBIE-ish type of groove while audibly and emphatically stating the words “bondage” and “domination” more than once,” [approached BDSM-ism in a different way AllMusic's Alex Henderson – more here]

BELPHEGOR: Bondage Goat Zombie – courtesy of  Nuclear Blast Records

BELPHEGOR: Stigma Diabolicum – courtesy of Nuclear Blast Records

‘Walpurgis Rites: Hexenwahn’ followed in 2009. On the album's behalf About.com's Dan Marsciano noticed that black metal lyrics have become more insanely humorous as time has gone on, with BELPHEGOR being as guilty of this as many other bands in the genre (more here):

BELPHEGOR: Veneratio Diaboli - I Am Sin – courtesy of Nuclear Blast Records

BELPHEGOR features: Helmuth on heretic grunts, chainsaw and guitar and Serpenth on bass /devastator