Band:	Woods Of Belial
Album:	Deimos XIII
Style:	Industrial doom metal
Release date:	2003
A review by:	KwonVerge

01. Worm Of Na 'Ruq
02. Desolate
03. Halla
04. The 13th Horror
05. Pervertum II

"Deimos XIII", as far as I know, is the only release of the mysterious doomsters Woods of Belial. "Deimos XIII" is a gate to Hell from where there is no escape. You lose yourself into a barren land where the sun has died forever, only the scorched will embrace will embrace your tormented body after you pass away, after you fall lifeless under a darkening horizon. Wohi, Blood and Horned Black, the figures behind the Woods of Belial, probably know what hell means and they pass this feeling through their music, through the dreary soundscapes they evoke that slowly turn to imaginary landscapes/nightmares that seem so real, so vivid in front of the very eyes of the listener.

Are you ready to visit a place where nightmares turn to life? Proceed, but know that your God won't help you?

?The "Worm of Na 'Ruq" starts lurking in the dreary catacombs. The sequencer's effects along with the distressful keyboard melodies and an unearthly voice reciting from above evoke an intense feeling of dismay and fear. The wandering in the darkness continues with "Desolate" and after a peaceful beginning with some keyboard sounds and doomy guitar riffing the atmosphere becomes intense and nightmarish as the keyboards evoke a suffocating feeling and slowly you feel the walls closing in. The static distorted guitar riffing and the imposing drumming accompany the descriptive voice of Wohi evoking visions of Hell with his expressive interpretation whether he recites in an unearthly way or just screams in despair or howls eerily giving meaning to every single word he utters, every verse is made up of a picture, a tormented one and as the moments pass by you lose yourself deeper and deeper into this world where "only time brings relief from the torture", where "the doors to all eternity have been locked". By the end of the composition you feel like drowning, grasping for air?

?The "desolate" cries that ended the previous nightmare echo from beyond as they begin a new one, "Halla". The claustrophobic feeling is still in the air and Wohi's distorted voice sounds so eerie, so unearthly, spitting pain and curses with every single word he utters. The guitar melodies caress you a loose around your neck craving to hold you tight upon the silent ground. The atmosphere is very heavy and you find yourself lost in a place where "your god is dead and you are all alone", "doomed to live forever dead". The "13th Horror" starts echoing in the silence. The serene distressful keyboard melodies slowly welcome Wohi reciting "unleash your demons, let us begin" and the nightmare continues; asphyxiating atmosphere that becomes more intense with the sequencer's effects. A various composition filled with different parts forming all together a dreary nightmare. At times the whole atmosphere is so strangely tranquil but the lyrics that Wohi recites evoke more pain whilst at other moments there are emotional outbursts with fearful melodies echoing and screams from above; the piano melodies whenever they enter the composition slowly pierce your soul with their melancholic sound. Solitude, pain, fear, mourning all at once. There are moments when you want to start screaming, when you want to start crying, when you want to escape. But "you will never find the endings, the mirroring walls are closing in", none will eve hear your cries "and only the walls echo your empty screams". Even death can't ease the pain, you "wish you'd pull the trigger to end all days and only the days bring relief from the pain"?

The nightmare ends(?) with "Pervertum II", an instrumental ambient composition; but atmosphere can tell much more than words with the keyboard sounds and the sequencer's effects that are being repeated, evoking an unearthly atmosphere to finally end in silence, in silence from where the nightmare began?

You are doomed, "Hell is behind, below, ahead and above you. No use to reach for Light, you'll only find your shadow". The nightmare was just too real?