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Review: The Belonging - Ashes Of the Fallen Throne
The Belonging
www.thebelonging.co.uk
Ashes Of the Fallen Throne

Label: Independent
Year released: 2008
Duration: 44:39
Tracks: 8
Genre: Black/Death

Rating:
4/5


Review online: February 6, 2009
Reviewed by: Michel Renaud
Readers' Rating
How do you rate this release?

Rated 4/5 (80%) (2 Votes)
Review

An interesting album here.  "Blackened Death with a twist" is the best I can come up with for a quick genre description.  Your basics are, of course, Black/Death - mostly mid to fast-paced with the occasional slow and crushingly heavy passages.  Nothing out of the ordinary there, but The Belonging add their own little touch to the genre by adding a "quasi-symphonic" vibe - "quasi" in the sense that it has the "grandiose" aspect of symphonic, but without sounding watered down - it's actually a very powerful, heavy and dark vibe here.  Their sound also reminds me a little bit of the likes of Melechesh; I won't go as far as to say that they have Middle Eastern elements in their music, but it's pretty close in sound, and from the very first listen until now, I can't help but think of Melechesh whenever I hear some of the songs here - hell, throw in a bit of Absu while you're at it. ;) On the vocals side, no surprises - a BM-ish rasp that sometimes borders on light growls - not particularly decipherable unless you pay very close attention.  The way this sounds, you'd think the vocals are married with the instruments - there's something to the vocalist's voice that roughly resonates like an actual instrument (a bit difficult to put this into words ;)), and the end result is that you have a near-perfect harmony.

With Ashes Of the Fallen Throne, The Belonging managed to marry the brutal force of Black/Death with the epic, majestic nature of (more or less) "symphonic" metal and produce something that doesn't sound watered down; in fact if anything, the heavy, dark, almost doomy atmosphere makes this a more obscure release than many pure Black/Death releases.  Good stuff.

More about The Belonging...
Review: Setting The Scene (reviewed by 4th Horseman)
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