The Belonging - Ashes Of The Fallen Throne (CD)

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I am not really sure why this album came a while ago, since it is kind of outdated, but since THE BELONGING were kind enough to send it over I am going to review it. I kind of suspected the music these guys play just from the really dark cover and the classic logo. Well yes ladies and gentlemen, THE BELONGING is a Black Metal band!

THE BELONGING hail from Bradford, UK, and I was kind of weird to hear their music since the British bands haven't used us to Black Metal music. Anyway, this is the band's sophomore full-length effort and together with their debut album and two demos it continues the DIY legacy of the band. It is an honor for them to do everything themselves and avoid signing to a label. The amazing thing is that without anyone's help they have also managed to share the stage with bands like ENSLAVED, SABBAT, EVILE, ENSIFERUM and more.

In the promo sheet that was contained in the album, the band claims to play a mixture between DISSECTION, SATYRICON, ENSLAVED, MARDUK and OPETH. I found many MARDUK influences as well as some old DISSECTION melodies here and there, something I didn't really expect. They are way more brutal than I expected them to be. The tempo varies from hellish blasts to mid tempo warlike breaks. Their obvious MARDUK influences are mixed together with some thrashier parts, as well as some slight doses of melody, enough to make the sound a bit more diverse and really few to make the band sound like one more average melodic Black/Death wannabe.

Some negative things I should point out here are definitely the weak production, which makes the whole album sound much worse than how it should and the weaknesses in the songwriting part. I listened to the album several times, but I could only be concentrated on the music only up to a moment. They have really good ideas and some well worked song structures, but as it seems they are not enough to hold the listener focused until the end.