Les Légions Noires: Belkètre

***NOTE ON THE MUSIC: All of the decent quality Belkètre songs kept being taken down from YouTube, so I uploaded some songs into my Google Drive. That's what I've linked to this blog entry. If you want to listen to them, request access and I'll grant it to you***

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Of all of the bands that were a part of Frances Les Légions Noires, BELKÈTRE is one that has the oldest connection to French black metal in general. In 1989, black metal act Chapel of Ghouls formed in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France. In 1991, Chapel of Ghouls seemed to briefly break up and form the band Zelda. There is debate about whether or not these are early incarnations of Belkètre, but the members of these bands were also the members of Belkètre. Whatever the band's origins, Belkètre had definitely sprung into existence by 1992.

Belkètre was fronted by the enigmatic Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb. Like most of the Black Legions, not much is known about this man. Unlike Meyhna'ch over in Mütiilation, the gentlemen of Belkétre were committed very fully to the LLN lifestyle. This included their contributions to the 'secret language' of LLN: Gloatre. It is a dark and demonic-looking language that appears to be impossible to pronounce by human tongues. The names of many members of LLN were rendered in Gloatre, including Vordb's.

"The Dark Promise" is from Belkétre's 1993 demo, Despair
Belkètre's earliest demo material that eventually saw the light of day was recorded in 1993. The Despair demo seeped out into the underground in that same year, and it had the same icy cold sound of death that characterized all LLN releases. At the same time, it owed less to the necro stylings of Norway than it did to the thrashier sounds of the 80s black metal scene. Listen to the riffing of "The Dark Promise" (above) to see what I mean.


This is the title track from 1994's Twilight of the Black Holocaust
 But as Belkètre's releases began to emerge, and the LLN matured as song writers, sounds and styles changed. The most prominent example, of course, is the split they released with Vlad Tepes, March to the Black Holocaust.

Many of the songs on this legendary split (one of the few "official" releases of LLN) not only have that raw, evil, gutter-scraping production style associated with all of these cult French acts, but the song structures had begun to move away from old-school black metal. The motifs running throughout songs like "Night of Sadness" or "A Day Will Dawn" almost remind one of what was going on in Norway at around the same time. But, of course, there was always a nastier, rawer edge to the works of LLN.

From Vordb's dark ambient project Moëvöt, this is "Im Sarg-Teil I"

Vordb and company soldiered on as Belkètre for about as long as the LLN in general lasted. Several other demos surfaced as late as 1997. In addition to his work with Belkètre, Vordb also experimented with dark ambient (a popular genre among black metallers) as a member of LLN band Moëvöt. Like the black metal of these cult bands, the dark ambient associated with LLN was about glorifying darkness and evil in the name of Satan.

When the LLN dissolved, the rumors were that the members of Belkètre had killed themselves. These ended up being false rumors, but the words of Vordb himself summed up Belkètre's philosophy of life: "Creation, more precisely the claim to creation, is purely human and so undeniably illusive. Only destruction is Satanic and eternal. I am not a creator but a destructor. My works have no future in this world."

Despite this bleak and nihilistic philosophy regarding art, Vordb has resurrected Belketre and Moëvöt in the last decade, with the intent of unleashed more audial hell on this world.

Select Discography:

Belkètre:

Despair (Studio Tracks 1993) (demo) (1993)

The Dark Promise (demo) (1994)

Twilight of the Black Holocaust (Studio Tracks 1994) (demo) (1994)
Belkètre (demo) (1994)

March to the Black Holocaust (split with Vlad Tepes) (1995)

Amber Zuerkl Vuorhdrévartre  (demo) (1995)

Xér.n o-r.iidr (demo) (1997)


Moëvöt:

Verwüstute Landschaften (demo) (1991)

Ikzabae under Èlsyèdyae (demo) (1992)

Abgzvoryathe (demo) (1993)
Ézlèfbdrèthtr Vèpréub Zuèrkl Mazagvatre Èrbsèdréa (compilation) (1994)
Voekreb I (1994)
Voekreb II (1995)
Voekreb III (1995)

Unter dem Marmor (1995)
Voarmtrèb vzaéurvbtraya (1995)

Next time: CARPATHIAN FOREST