Hell yeah – the devil’s music! Meet Vs At The Southern Sign by the French guys of GLORIOR BELLI truly is the devil’s music. Metal and Black Metal are that by definition you say? Yes, no doubt about that – but on Meet Vs At The Southern Sign GLORIRO BELLI go back to the roots in a way I hadn’t heard before. The really stylish and cool cover artwork together with the pointed direction, the Southern Sign, gives fitting decent hints which theoretically leads to the sound GLORIOR BELLI present to the listener. The cover plays with the south states based American legend of the “Crossroads”, where a pact with the devil himself can be made. And I guess that the Southern Sign also directly points to the gates of hell in the meaning of south from heaven, hehe.
So how does Meet Vs At The Southern Sign sound like? The main ingredient of GLORIOR BELLI’s musical cocktail is definitely slow and to some point raw sounding Black Metal. So far this is nothing really new, but then the influences of other genres come to play. Heavy, gritty chewing riffs which clearly sprang forth from Southern- and Stoner music and a decent bluesy atmosphere give the Nordic (Swedish) based Black Metal a strange unexpected warm and sticky sound putting out the New Orleans / Southern swamp feeling in a great and fresh way.
Though the major part of the songs is of slower nature, GLORIOR BELLI aren’t afraid of putting the pedal down now and then. Rarely for the length of a whole song like in The Forbidden Words or Nox Illuminatio Mea, but mainly in form of short but intensive passages which, like in There Is But One Light, put the drive into the songs at the most fitting moment. Also the vocal section comes up with some surprises. Mostly a raw and throaty Black Metal voice is used but there are also clean sung passages supporting the instrumental Stoner/Southern quotes, especially brilliant done on In Every Grief-Stricken Blues, making this a combination I never heard before.
Meet Vs At The Southern Sign really brings some sticky, yet refreshing, winds into the broad field of Black Metal which, regardless of many technical versed bands, in my opinion is a bit lacking of new ways and ideas. The combination of DarkThrone-like rawness, the slower and pitchblack side of newer Satyricon, melodic Swedish Black Metal in the vein of older Dissection together with the pressure and heaviness of bands like Down, Crowbar etc. is a great new approach and is highly enjoyable, making Meet Vs At The Southern Sign an awesome album and showing GLORIOR BELLI as a band deserving really more attention. In my opinion it would be great if the Stoner/Southern influences would be given even more room. I’m sure they haven’t reached the maximum of their potential yet. So come on guys, head straight to the Southern Sign – you won’t regret this pact. See you at the crossroads…