Description

2019 Us pressing on black vinyls with gatefold cover

Grand Belials Keys debut ‘Mocking The Philanthropist’ is strong, although the majority of this strength is in the album’s first half. Each song displays what the band is best at: catchy riffs with a rocking but – what else? – Blasphemous atmosphere and lyrics. This album features one of Grand Belials best tracks, ‘Shemhamforash’, it’s evil, catchy, powerful, and at 1:47 presents one of the best riffs in all of black metal. A problem with this debut is the sound/production. Now, black metal is obviously not known for great production, but as any listener who knows what they’re talking about will tell you, the low quality of production is there to enhance the atmosphere of the music. On, ‘Mocking The Philanthropist’, the sound is just amateurish, sounding like a hastily recorded garage band demo. The guitar tone, so crucial to the heaviness of the riffs, is too vague and weak, the drums sound unnatural, and vocalist Cazz Grant mumbles in the background with a confusing echo effect that ruins the experience. Lucky for these guys, they corrected all these problems on their next album, ‘Judeobeast Assassination’ – The guitar tone is thick and nasty, and the vocals have a very foul, evil sound that truly suit’s the over-the-top vulgarity of the lyrics. This is a good album, just not a great one. I wouldn’t recommend it to someone as their first GBK album (see the aforementioned ‘Judeobeast Assassination’) but it does have some great material and a few of their best songs.

Track listing:
1. Foul Parody of the Lord’s Supper
2. Shemhamforash
3. Reflections of the Coffin Lid
4. The Slums of Jerusalem
5. Castrate the Redeemer
6. Sumerian Fairytale
7. At the Blessed Grotto
8. Savouring the Virgin’s Pessary
9. In Rapture by the Fenrir Moon
10. Demonarchy
11. The Centaur
12. Conspicuous Imagery Adorns the Nunnery
13. The Seventh Enochian Key
14. The Holocaust Trumpeter