Wow. Belphegor has a pretty distinct sound. They have songs which have so many elements of both black and death metal, that you can't say they're either. On this EP--which consists of two original songs, "Obscure and Deep" and "Bloodstained Ritual" as well as the Black Sabbath cover song "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"--you can hear so many riffs and guitar sections which remind you of Morbid Angel or Deicide, with brutally low vocals as well. But then there will be a section of tremolo-picking that is almost black metal-like, along with screeching higher-pitched vocals. In one respect, they sound almost like a more brutal Angelcorpse--see especially the opening to "Obscure and Deep." And the Sabbath cover is interesting. Brutal death metal growls over the classic riffs of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"? Priceless. In any case, this early stuff by Belphegor is a great reminder that fantastic metal in the mid-1990s wasn't only coming out of America, Sweden, Norway, or Great Britain (as we so often forget).
