CoC : Belshazzar - Sie Nur Ad Astra : Review

Belshazzar - _Sie Nur Ad Astra_
by: Paul Schwarz (2 out of 5)

An acceptable though rather shoddy demo of what is more or less black metal from this Lanarkshire duo. Creators Arioch and Mars impress almost as little with the music presented on _Sie Nur Ad Astra_ as with their choice of pseudonyms. Their production ranges from average (on the first two, produced tracks) to irritatingly bad (on the closing two, rehearsal-room recordings) while the music neither has atmosphere, nor gains any through the rough quality of its production as, for example, Darkthrone so famously do. Belshazzar has little to do with black metal as far as I can see; it has none of its atmosphere and is not even stylistically that similar. Thus this demo of -metal- is simply nondescript and uninteresting, displaying, as is often the case with demos, a band able to play heavy music, but not necessarily with any particular skill in fashioning great or original songs from it.

Contact: 23 Tarbolton, Calderwood, East Kilbride G74 3SQ, Scotland

(article published 12/8/2000)