BELONGING, THE „Setting The Scene”

Music : Heavy/Black Metal
Cool Songs : Black Sun Rising, Dying In Sorrow
Website : http://www.thebelonging.co.uk

The Belonging is an underground black metal band from England. Formed in 1998 and 3 years later they released their debut demo. Back in 2003 it was time for their second demo release and now we have their debut, self released, album here.

“Setting The Scene” contains 9 songs (including intro and outro) and only 3 of them are new ones. There are 2 songs from each of their demo releases here which have been rerecorded. In their bio I see that they recorded and mixed this album in just 4 days. This can explain the below average production of this release. Especially the drums are like have been performed by a drum machine. Anyway. Musically they combine black metal with pure heavy metal riffs and so there are parts that they remind of Darkthrone and Gehenna and others in which you can find influences from bands like Iron Maiden! Their balck metal parts are other times fast with blastbeats and other times slow with epic melodies. I think the slow and more melodic parts are better in their music in contradiction with the black metal parts that are not good.

I just feel that the band is not sure yet about the style they want to follow and this reflects to their music. And by the time they have some very good ideas I think they need to find what exactly they like and present it to us in their next album. Keep working guys!

note: 4,5/10

Tracklist

1. Plague (Intro)
2. Black Sun Rising
3. The Shell Documentary
4. The Calling
5. Dying In Sorrow
6. The Belonging
7. Dreaming Darkness
8. Setting The Scene
9. Resolved (Outro)