Artist: Curse Of Belial
Country: Germany
Label: Astral Nightmare Productions
Format: CD
Year: 2026
Curse Of Belial is, as I recently learned, the solo-project of Agris, a multi-instrumentalist who is also active in a bunch of other projects. As I flick through the pages linked to this musician on the Metal-Archives website, I find myself getting closer and closer to the heart of what Germany was known for in the world of Black Metal some twenty-five years ago: painful mediocrity. That’s why I didn’t listen to Curse Of Belial’s debut either. It was a split CD with Pestnebel, a band I mainly remembered for its equally painfully amateurish logo; I wanted to spare myself the misery; after all, life is short enough as it is, so wasting your time on bad music is a form of self-torture.
But given that virtually all the bands, projects and labels associated with or linked to Curse Of Belial or Agaris’s earlier work are really not worth the effort, I’m fairly surprised by this first album. To put this in some context, I am pretty sure that ‘Angel Of Poison And Disease’ will not end up in anyone’s year-end lists of greatest albums of 2026, but it surely is an enjoyable record.
It was marketed as being good stuff to check out for fans of Judas Iscariot. Well, that is a great start, as ‘Angel Of Poison And Disease’ indeed harks back to those late 90s and early 00s kind of Black Metal. It is a riff-heavy affair with a brisk pace, icy vocals and a raw production, pretty much like the back catalogue of Judas Iscariot. It might lack the pure genius of Judas Iscariot, but comparing it to the flagbearer of American Black Metal is certainly on point. Although Judas Iscariot is pretty much covering the whole thing, it is quite fair to add some other bands from that golden age of raw, hateful and misanthropic Black Metal to paint a complete picture of what you’re in for if you’d give this album a spin. So, in case you’re still fond of the early recordings of bands like Maniac Butcher, Krieg, Leviathan, Nargaroth, Weltmacht, Satanic Warmaster, Sargeist, Inquisition and especially Moonblood, you’re welcome to give it a try.
While ‘Angel Of Poison And Disease’ captures quite a bit of the zeitgeist of those vibrant days of Black Metal around the turn of the millennium, it’s probably not the sort of album you’ll find yourself reaching for very often, but it’s undoubtedly a solid record that’s thoroughly entertaining.
