Ambre Zuèrkl Vuorhdrévarvtre

I only wish this recording was at least 15 minutes longer! This is raw and hateful French black metal and the bad sound quality throughout this CD adds to the negative emotions expressed and the aggressive music. There are 10 tracks on my Tragic Empire Rex copy of this recording of which I prefer the all-instrumental intro (a guitar siren repeating a basic riff over and over against fluttering distorted machine-like rhythm buzz) and the outro in which two sets of guitar riffs sound off in parallel like lonely foghorns: both pieces are very desolate, slow and sombre, and are about as minimal as raw black metal can possibly be. Incidentally all tracks have titles but they are in an esoteric language often used by the French Black Legions bands, of which Belketre is one of the more famous along with Mutiilation and Vlad Tepes, to name their songs and recordings (like this one) and often their projects and side-projects so for the sake of convenience I will refer to particular tracks as track 1, track 2 and so on. My copy does not include the song "Twilight of the Black Holocaust".

Between tracks 1 and 10 you have 8 pieces that are more rock-oriented and structured as songs with punk influences, fast and angry rhythms, and very rasp singing that occasionally includes screaming which sounds like leopard roars. The poor sound which has a lot of frizzly static makes the songs seem quite monstrous; the bass guitar especially has a gargantuan sound that gives the music a soundtrack kind of feel which explains why I think the album should be longer (such a huge sound seems wasted on short songs!); and there is often a long continuous drone going on in the background which gives the music an oppressive quality.

For such fast, grim and blasphemous music, many songs here actually have quite catchy melodies and riffs: track 2 which has a repeating riff of wailing siren guitar that fades off into the background is a good example as is also track 3 which has quite a good groove under the blastbeats. Track 5 is a surprise, being a pounding throbbing drum rhythm beast beating against your speakers and always on the verge of breaking out while foreboding tones hover in the background. Track 6 can be chaotic but has a stupendous sound and a lightning-fast guitar solo: this is one track that could have been expanded as there are many good things going on, a catchy rhythm here, ominous riffs there, thumping drums elsewhere and always, always that horrid drone. Strange voices that might have come from weird alien / robot hybrid beings appear on track 8.

Overall this is a very good recording with a lot of ideas and a surprising variety which isn't apparent at first under all that fuzzed static and the rasping vocals. The instrumental tracks indicate a willingness to experiment with sound and rhythm, and possibly in another life in years to come these Belketre buys may be scoring music for movies, TV, video games and theatre productions. (No, I do not have soap operas or ballet stuff in mind.) The whole recording, though based on self-contained songs, does have a unified soundtrack feel due to the fuzzy production and the ever-present drone which hovers about like a malevolent god overseeing Belketre's activity.