Artist: Black Funeral
Country: Brazil
Label: Northmoon Zephyr Productions
Formats: CD
Year: 2026
Everyone mildly interested in underground Black Metal, beyond your average Nuclear Blast Records catalogue “Black Metal”, must have at least heard about Black Funeral. It is one of the unsung kings of American Black Metal, or USBM, if you will. Whether or not they were named after the Mercyful Fate song, it was such a cool name that more bands signed up for Black Funeral as their moniker. As far as Metal-Archives is concerned, there is one from Argentina and this one from Brazil, that has released a compilation of both demos through the revered Finnish label Northmoon Zephyr Productions.
If you haven’t heard about the band or not just never got around to actually listening to the two demos the band ever recorded, you are forgiven. Especially if you’re not from Brazil, chances are slim that any of their material ever reached you. Still, those two demos, released in 1995 and 1997 did have some considerable circulation in the tape trading scene that was still very much alive at those days.
‘Occult Voices Of Hell’ compiles both demos in reverse-chronological order. That means that the CD opens with ‘Symbol Of Power And Dignity’, the second demo that was released in 1997 and has a playing time of well over half an hour. It is fair to say that this demo is the most advanced of the two, but still is knee-deep into the uncultivated primitivism that characterized so many of the early Black Metal demos of a decade earlier, at the end of the 80s. Very moody with lots of slow tempos and added keyboards to set the atmosphere, consequently, it is not so hard to figure out the Black Funeral’s main influences. This is definitely the stuff that will be enjoyed by those who are heavily into the early works of Black/Doom Metal bands like Varathron, Barathrum, Mystifier, Samael and Goatlord.
The second part, which is the first demo entitled ‘Blasphemate’ from 1995, sounds even more primitive, and, as a whole, a bit more stripped down. As a result, the gloomy atmosphere of ‘Symbol Of Power And Dignity’ is mostly lacking, but it is richer in riffs and especially vocals, or at least there is more room for them to be exposed. The production, too, is much more primitive and even less unbalanced. But still, this demo has some magic to it and brings you back to long bygone days when Black Metal was still dark, obscure and profoundly evil.
As of late, Northmoon Zephyr Productions, run by Witchcraft’s Goatprayer, has unearthed a rather large amount of old and forgotten gems from all corners of the world. It is needless to say that all of these CDs are not quite interesting for people who take their daily dose of music from the Black Metal Promotion YouTube channel, but for anyone who likes to dig deeper and love true underground Black Metal, all of these CDs are worth checking out. This one, quite clearly, is no exception.
