With:	Whole band
Conducted by:	Raiden (e-mail)
Published:	15.04.2007
Band profile:	Be'lakor
Album info:	The Frail Tide

01. Neither Shape Nor Shadow
02. The Desolation Of Ares
03. Tre'aste
04. A Natural Apostasy
05. Paths
06. Sanguinary

Australian Melodic Death Metal band Be'lakor have a new album entitled "The Frail Tide" coming out soon. Upon contacting the band, they agreed to do a song-by-song review for the album...


1. Neither Shape Nor Shadow

This track is one of our favourites. It probably contains the best cross-section of the musical styles and approaches that we like to use in our songwriting. The initial riff is several years old, but it has found a home at the start of the album, and we like the fact that it gets the CD off to a very melodic start with a real sense of impact. The searing octavisation and some of the harmonies here came to us during recording, and we feel that these really added to the song. Lyrically, Neither Shape Nor Shadow is one that we're proud of? it's one of our less direct pieces.

2. The Desolation of Ares

A much heavier and darker song in many ways. Our impression of this song is that it's a good example of taking a relatively simple set of chords and manipulating them throughout the song to keep things interesting. The chorus harmonies were refined quite late in the process but came out quite well, and the variations in vocal style in the latter stages of the song are also something that we're really happy with.

3. Tre'aste

Whilst we're under no illusions about this song's influences and structure, we do feel that Tre'aste has a kind of spacey polish to it, which makes it a great live track and probably quite a memorable song. It's the only song on the album that uses a proper key-change and it's also the shortest of the tracks. It's understandable that this track might divide people's opinions a little.

4. A Natural Apostasy

The intro to Apostasy evolved over many months, going from a fairly simple riff to one that uses quite unusual timing. The strings here were added towards the end of the process but seem to have complemented the intro well. There are a lot of twin-guitar harmonies in this track - we probably won't write a song with that many twin-guitars in the near future.

5. Paths

A very sparse piano piece, Paths was included on the album to provide some dynamics and aural 'room.' It was recorded in a very simple fashion, so the Piano sound could have been more professional, but in some ways this allowed for quite an old-world feel, which has not been a bad thing.

6. Sanguinary

One of our oldest songs, it must be said that Sanguinary pleased some fans but left others undecided. As a band, we are somewhat tired of this song. Having said this, it does contain Shaun Sykes' favourite guitar solo. It has a wonderful live energy, and the closing stanzas do make for a fitting end to the CD.