Glorior Belli

STREAM: Glorior Belli - "I Asked For Wine, He Gave Me Blood"

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France seems to produce two kinds of black metal: “rules” black metal (think of the guy from Vlad Tepes saying that “Every True Black Metal Horde should play in old Bathory style”), and “no rules” black metal. Glorior Belli are definitely the latter. I still find it a tad strange when European metal bands rely heavily on blues riffs, and as we’ve mentioned before, Glorior Belli’s ability to smoothly integrate them into the alien sounds of black metal is remarkable.

Still, my personal favorite Glorior Belli album is Manifesting the Raging Beast, their 2007 sophomore effort. It’s not as stylistically exciting as the two albums that followed it; the harmonic content is far more conventionally European. But that’s okay. Their black metal is plenty strong enough to stand on its own.

If you too retain an affection for that album, you will appreciate the new song that Glorior Belli debuted last night. The band’s sardonic tone comes through loud and clear in the title (which rules), and the stern scream-along chorus pretty much guarantees the tune “live staple” status. The signature blues trope makes an appearance, but only in a moaning solo near the track’s conclusion. The rest is all fire and ice. Perhaps the “Southern” in The Great Southern Darkness referred to Corsica all along.

Stream “I Asked For Wine, He Gave Me Blood” below. Glorior Bell will release their fifth record, Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls, in November.

Doug Moore