by Niklas Göransson

In 1992, a reluctant alliance between Gelal Necrosodomy and Lord Vlad Luciferian gave birth to Grand Belial’s Key. With their landmark demo Goat of a Thousand Young, the fledgling duo gained underground traction even as its foundation crumbled.

 

GELAL NECROSODOMY: At some point in ‘92, Valerio (Lord Vlad Luciferian) contacted me about a collaboration. He’d heard the ARGHOSLENT demo and liked my guitar style. I’d seen him play with MEATGRINDER a couple of times, and they were pretty good. He was a total weirdo but knew a lot of obscure music – DEATH SS and all this other shit.

By 1992, relations within MEATGRINDER were strained. Drummer and vocalist Lord Vlad Luciferian’s theatrical persona and passion for black metal aesthetics clashed with his more death metal puritan bandmates. In The Black Montanas of Thy Septentrio #1, Lord Vlad recalled: ‘When we played live, I would paint my face, wear spikes and inverted crosses, and say blasphemic verses between songs’, adding that he felt ‘out of place and unhappy.’ Rather than continue, he decided to shift artistic focus toward a new project.

When first approached, Gelal was told his role would be writing lead guitar parts for a black metal band assembled by Lord Vlad.

GELAL: I showed up at Valerio’s rehearsal space – an unfinished laundry room in his mother’s basement. Old sink, cinderblock walls, stains everywhere, super humid, smelled like crap. I looked around and asked, ‘Where the fuck is everyone?’ Valerio just goes, ‘Oh, nobody showed up.’ He was completely defeated. Turns out they didn’t want to work with him at all.

But you did?

GELAL: Well, I knew people despised Valerio before we even met, so I probably thought, ‘I might have to team up with the guy everyone hates. When they go that way, I’ll go this way.’ He explained what he had in mind: the music needed to be original, but he also wanted it to sound like various shit I’d never heard of.

Do you remember anything specific?

GELAL: Probably DEATH SS, Paul Chain, and a bunch of Brazilian bands. I just told him, ‘Look, dude, let me work on it; I’ll figure something out.’ There was a bass guitar lying around the rehearsal space that someone must’ve left behind. I’d never really played bass before, but I grabbed it and went home.

 

Over the following weeks, Gelal wrote some material that didn’t quite fit ARGHOSLENT – it was set aside and used as the foundation for this new project.

GELAL: Imagining vocals kind of like MASTER’S HAMMER, I wrote some riffs, pieced them together, and thought it sounded good. I just didn’t know what anyone else would think. I played it for Valerio, and he went, ‘It’s fucking amazing, man.’ I told him, ‘Learn this shit, then call me. I’ll bring my machine, and we can record something.’

Having used his four-tracker to record ARGHOSLENT’s 1991 demo, “The Entity”, Gelal was no stranger to self-recording. By the time tracking with Lord Vlad began in December ’92, he had a solid grasp of the machine.

GELAL: I had four mics: one on the bass drum, one on the snare, one between two toms, and another hanging from a nail. I think we placed my amp on the sink, and there was nowhere to put the fucking synthesiser but an ironing board. We set it up, Valerio recorded drums, then laid down his vocals – which were great. Definitely nothing like the other bands around.

And so, the classic songs “Shemhamforash”, “Goat of a Thousand Young”, and “Sumerian Fairytale” took shape. The closing track, “The Seventh Enochian Key”, owes its distinctive sound to a last-minute decision by Gelal, who felt the demo was too short.

GELAL: My four-tracker had a speed setting, so I just slowed it down. That’s why the song has this stretched-out vibe – it added two more minutes and sounded kind of cool. But anything Valerio wanted to do beyond what I planned became a problem. Even on that track, I had to step in after he recorded fucking bongos in the middle.

Bongos, as in Afro-Cuban percussion?

GELAL: Yeah. I listened back and said, ‘You think that sounds good?’ He goes, ‘Oh, come on, we gotta use them!’ And I was like, ‘What the fuck do bongos have to do with anything? Absolutely not, end of story.’ I erased that shit. But yeah, I thought the demo turned out pretty original.

Indeed. From the first instance I heard the incredible intro, “Goat of a Thousand Young” has been one of my favourite demos of all time.

GELAL: I wrote the intro at my house, on my own. I think there’s some bass in the background too – probably the one I stole from Valerio’s place. We’ve used the piece to open live shows in the past. I might actually bring that sucker back someday; it could work.

 

I’ve often marvelled at the atmospheric qualities of this demo, considering the material dates back to 1992. As such, it was with great interest that I came across an old ARGHOSLENT interview where Gelal talked about drawing inspiration from film scores.

GELAL: Yeah, now that you mention it, I’d started paying attention to movie scores around then. In ‘92, I took some bullshit college class about soundtracks – studying how to compose and arrange them. There’s some theory behind it, so I was like, ‘Okay, now I get how they do this.’

The interview names films such as The Mission, Jacob’s Ladder, and The Last Temptation of Christ. The latter features an ambitious score written and performed by Peter Gabriel.

GELAL: Back then, if you weren’t twenty-one in America, you had nothing to do. A buddy of mine was a real movie buff, so we’d just drive around the woods at night listening to the Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack. I remember thinking, ‘How does someone come up with this stuff?’

Do you think it influenced the “Goat of a Thousand Young” sound?

GELAL: Maybe. It’s tough to quantify. Like, ‘What inspired you to build that wall? Egypt and the pyramids?’ ‘Nah, man. I just needed a wall.’ Or ‘What inspired you to cook this meal?’ ‘I don’t know – I was fucking hungry.’ But sure, it’s a legit observation: I could definitely sense something going on with those soundtracks.

Did you like the actual films or just the scores?

GELAL: I’m not huge on movies, but at least those – none of which are fiction, mind you – were ones I could watch. Jacob’s Ladder was crazy; apparently based on LSD experiments in Vietnam, though the government denies it. And The Mission was a huge inspiration for early ARGHOSLENT lyrics: Jesuits conquering the New World and fighting the Indians.

Did you have any involvement in the “Goat of a Thousand Young” lyrics?

GELAL: No. Valerio either already had lyrics or wrote some; I don’t know. I’ll tell you what, though – he freaked me out because he took the Satanic stuff really seriously. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, nor did I care. “Shemhamforash” came from some black magic text, so I figured it might’ve been used before.

The year prior, Finland’s IMPALED NAZARENE released a demo called “Shemhamforash”.

GELAL: Leaving Valerio to choose things meant he’d simply copy other people’s stuff. Like the band name – he had a list of suggestions his former collaborators came up with. One was ‘Satanic Christ’, ‘Satanachist’, or something similar. I told him, ‘Dude, there’s no way this isn’t already taken.’ I don’t remember the rest, just GRAND BELIAL’S KEY. I went, ‘Yep, that one. Let’s use it.’

 

The first GRAND BELIAL’S KEY demo, “Goat of a Thousand Young”, was released in December 1992.

GELAL: Valerio couldn’t even make the demo cover. I told him, ‘You go to the library, put a coin in the Xerox machine, and press copy.’ He had no idea. Nevertheless, I left distribution and correspondence to him because I was already overloaded; we were just finishing up the first Sinistrari issue around then.

While initially a collaboration, the Sinistrari project soon became Gelal’s responsibility – from layout and interviews to coordinating scene reports. With contributions from Poland, Greece, Japan, and beyond, the fanzine offered a detailed snapshot of the international metal underground in the pre-internet era.

GELAL: I also worked a job, went to college, played in ARGHOSLENT, and handled band correspondence. So, Valerio started spreading the demo around. I had no clue it was circulating like crazy until much later. That’s just how it went – I walked into this situation. GRAND BELIAL’S KEY wasn’t exactly on my horizon.

With a demo out, Lord Vlad began planning their stage presence. There are few bands whose early history I’d have loved to witness as a fly on the wall more than GRAND BELIAL’S KEY. Take, for instance, the time ARGHOSLENT bassist Kommando came by to discuss playing live – only for Lord Vlad to start talking about displaying fresh meat on stage.

GELAL: First off, had I known he’d say that, I would’ve told Kommando, ‘Don’t even bother showing up.’ He was a strong character – older than us, and a death metal guy through and through. So, when Valerio started going on about this and that, Kommando immediately shut him down. ‘No, we’re not doing any of your shit.’ Valerio countered, ‘Okay, but it’s not really black metal then…’

Eventually, after some heated back-and-forth, they reached a compromise.

GELAL: I told Valerio, ‘Goddamn it, we’re not having any dead anything on stage. At most, we’ll wear cloaks or maybe do some corpse paint – but forget all that crazy shit.’ Anyway, Kommando agreed to play, and we brought in a girl to cover the synth parts. It was just a few melodies, but you’d miss them without keys.

 

The stage debut of GRAND BELIAL’S KEY took place in March 1993 at The Cave in Manassas, Virginia.

GELAL: What’s hilarious is that Valerio actually drove to the show in full stage attire. Black metal was practically unheard of in our parts, so when I saw him step out of his mom’s station wagon in corpse paint… <groans> ‘Jesus Christ, this guy is embarrassing me.’ Then he goes, ‘Oh, we need candles on stage!’ ‘Fine, man. Whatever.’

There was no meat on display, but all members dressed in black and wore corpse paint. As seen in the video footage, before taking his seat behind the drum kit, Lord Vlad addressed the audience.

GELAL: So, Valerio starts rambling in that black metal screech, waving some kind of chalice around. Meanwhile, guys were skateboarding in the venue – the stage was basically a ramp. Then he knocks something over, trying to act tough. If you listen closely, you can hear people laughing in the background, like, ‘What is he doing?’

Towards the end of their set, Lord Vlad first announces a cover of VENOM’s “Countess Bathory”, and then – in his black metal voice – calls out, ‘King Fowley, I summon you to the microphone, for I do not know all the words.’ Moments later, the DECEASED frontman appears on stage.

The audio recording is actually pretty good and even led to an early offer. The first label to court GRAND BELIAL’S KEY was Pure Evil Records, an underground operation in the Netherlands run by a member of BESTIAL SUMMONING.

GELAL: BESTIAL SUMMONING were interviewed in Sinistrari, so I probably knew him from there. That would’ve been the first label to approach us. I don’t know – maybe they wanted to do a seven-inch with live tracks from one of our shows. I remember hearing something about it.

 

Despite early enthusiasm, the EP never materialised. Worse yet, tensions within the band escalated at an alarming pace.

GELAL: I just couldn’t deal with the guy. It was just me and Valerio – no one to back me up, no second vote. Up until we recorded “Goat of a Thousand Young”, our interaction was strictly band-related; we’d meet, do our thing, then leave. But afterwards, we started hanging out a bit more, which only made things worse due to his antics.

Like what?

GELAL: He couldn’t behave like a normal person. We’d be talking to some women, and this freak would start doing weird tongue tricks and showing off his long fingernails. The girls were like, ‘What’s wrong with him?’ I just shrugged, ‘I don’t know, dude. He’s twenty years old, probably never saw any action, yet talks about sacrificing virgins.’ I couldn’t be around that. He was too awkward.

After prolonged friction pertaining to the visual and thematic elements imposed by Lord Vlad, Gelal vacated his position as the guitarist of G.B.K. in late 1993.

GELAL: I just walked away. Didn’t care about rights to my music or anything like that back then. But I’ll tell you what: when Valerio saw the response to “Goat of a Thousand Young”, he thought, ‘I’m not quitting this!’ It was all he had going on.

 

A few months later, Lord Vlad began gathering new members to revitalise GRAND BELIAL’S KEY. I don’t envy any guitarist having to follow up the riffs on “Goat of a Thousand Young”.

GELAL: I wrote that entire demo, so whoever came next would’ve had to copy my style somehow. He brought in Tom Phillips (WHILE HEAVEN WEPT) for a while – which could’ve been interesting, I guess. They tried writing something, but… I mean, Valerio wasn’t ignorant about music. He probably just went, ‘No, this isn’t good enough.’

This new phase included Demonic, guitarist of DOOMSTONE – a kind of black/doom hybrid with heavy metal leanings, featuring two members of DECEASED. The prior year, DOOMSTONE had recorded their debut album, “Those Whom Satan Hath Joined”.

DEMONIC: Valerio and I would often run into each other at shows. Both of us hung around DECEASED, who were kind of the linchpins of our local scene. We even talked about me playing with MEATGRINDER at one point. I also knew Gelal and had been aware of ARGHOSLENT since their first demo.

ARGHOSLENT’s “The Entity” was recorded on Gelal’s four-tracker in late 1990.

DEMONIC: Valerio had been talking about this GRAND BELIAL’S KEY thing, but no one really knew what to expect. He wasn’t exactly taken seriously around here. Then, he’s suddenly recruited Gelal into a new band – and that definitely got our attention.

Demonic first heard “Goat of a Thousand Young” – along with the second ARGHOSLENT demo, “Bastard Son of One Thousand Whores” – at the home of DECEASED frontman King Fowley.

DEMONIC: King had just received “Bastard Son…” and the G.B.K. demo, and I happened to be there when he played both. Even he got into it, which said a lot – King thought “The Entity” was terrible, even though I liked it. But with the new ARGHOSLENT stuff and “Goat of a Thousand Young”, we were all impressed.

In early 1994, Lord Vlad invited Demonic to try out as guitarist of G.B.K.

DEMONIC: I vaguely remember going over to Valerio’s place to jam, and it played out pretty much exactly like Gelal described to me later – I showed up expecting a full band, but no one else was there. Still, Valerio seemed genuinely enthusiastic about me joining, and I loved the demo. I wanted to work with him.

How did you gel with Lord Vlad’s personality?

DEMONIC: Valerio came off as kind of immature, but I liked him. He wore corpse paint in MEATGRINDER as far back as 1991 – that was always his thing. Valerio had this SARCÓFAGO, KING DIAMOND, KISS, DEATH SS flair for the theatrical, but it came from a sincere place; he genuinely lived and breathed the aesthetic.

Not long after Demonic joined, the duo had secured a rehearsal studio and come up with a new song, “In Rapture of the Fenrir Moon”.

DEMONIC: I’d actually written most of it a few years earlier – as a huge DESTRUCTION fan, I basically tried to rip them off <laughs>. I was proud of “…Fenrir Moon” because it felt like the first time everything clicked for me as a composer. Up until then, I could write solid riffs but struggled to finish songs.