by Niklas Göransson

The Stadium Gospel – exiled and impenitent, Gelal found a new liturgy in violence and devotion. From this pilgrimage came Judeobeast Assassination: apocryphal scriptures for a faithless flock, and the next revelation of Grand Belial’s Key.

 

GELAL NECROSODOMY: Just the notion of being ‘banned’ from the underground was unthinkable to me. It’s like saying, ‘This porn is too graphic.’ What does that even mean? The so-called extreme metal scene – the one fighting censorship, moral policing, and religious interference – became exactly what it claimed to oppose.

In 1997, Flemish label Wood-Nymph Records released the debut album of GRAND BELIAL’S KEY, “Mocking the Philanthropist”, as a gatefold double-LP. A CD edition, distributed by Hammerheart Records and Rough Trade, followed in ‘98 but quickly ran into trouble.

The CD booklet included band photos featuring Gelal wearing a SPEAR OF LONGINUS t-shirt, as well as new bassist Der Stürmer – who didn’t perform on the album. This led Rough Trade to pull the release from circulation. Hammerheart, in turn, cut ties with Wood-Nymph, and the label soon went bankrupt.

GELAL: The underground was supposed to be a refuge for bands unable to exist on mainstream platforms. But suddenly, it had all these ethics? The only scene ethic I respect is ‘don’t rip people off’. When someone sends you five CDs, you send five back. If you don’t, you’re a piece of shit. If you do, you’re legit. That’s it.

In early 1999, Gelal and The Black Lourde of Crucifixion recorded three new G.B.K. songs – “The Tricifixion of Swine”, “Son of the Black Ram”, and “Kingdom of Poisoned Fruits” – at Crucifier Studio.

THE BLACK LOURDE OF CRUCIFIXION: Those tracks came out even crazier than the last batch. Gelal kept pushing into more extreme territory, constantly raising the bar; I felt lucky just being part of it. The production could’ve been stronger – but overall, it was a great experience.

GELAL: By then, we’d upgraded my old four-tracker to an eight-channel porta or early digital setup. Nevertheless, the process was identical. All those CRUCIFIER, BRETHREN, HEARSE, and BLUDGEON releases from that era used the same equipment – hence the identical drum sound.

Since Der Stürmer was in the process of moving interstate, Gelal handled bass duties. Besides The Marauder contributing to one song on “A Witness to the Regicide”, GRAND BELIAL’S KEY had yet to find a replacement for Demonic.

GELAL: Demonic’s absence from G.B.K. didn’t change anything between us. There’s always been deep mutual respect, and we stayed in touch the whole time. In fact, I borrowed some gear from him for those recordings. I remember meeting up a couple of days before I left for Argentina, just to return his shit.

 

In 1999, at age twenty-six, Gelal returned to Argentina – the country he’d spent part of his youth in. With university completed, personal circumstances shifting, and both GRAND BELIAL’S KEY and ARGHOSLENT facing boycotts over their debut albums, he wanted a change of scenery.

GELAL: Initially, I’d planned a short trip – a couple of weeks tops – to catch some soccer games. The sport had taken off in the US, but watching your own team is a totally different experience. I’d visited Argentina for a few months around ‘87, four years after moving back to the States, but a lot had changed since then.

Come the mid-1980s, Argentina had transitioned from military rule to democracy. Though the early years brought some stability, by 1999 the economy was in recession.

GELAL: Before leaving the States, I’d taught at a language school in DC. Their Argentinian branch wanted to hire me, offering pay in US dollars, cash. I figured, ‘Alright’, and stayed way longer than intended. My salary was just enough to get by – eat, see the games, live the life. And that shit costs money, you know?

Gelal spent most weekends following his football team, Club Atlético Racing of Nueva Italia, Córdoba, to home and away games. Given the region, I’m assuming he travelled with supporters of the rowdier persuasion.

GELAL: Everybody’s rowdy down there. In Europe, football hooligans are straight-up brawlers – I don’t know if they even care about their team. South America isn’t like that. Violence doesn’t come from pre-arranged fights; it erupts out of nowhere. A bad referee call, a pissed-off fan climbing the fence, a cop cracking someone with a baton… it escalates in seconds. No one plans shit.

In much of Western Europe, football-related violence has evolved into a highly organised subculture. To avoid police and media attention, so-called firms – tight-knit groups of supporters – engage in pre-arranged fights, often far from the stadium and under strict codes of conduct.

GELAL: The problem down there is that the hooligans mix with regular supporters. Fans of all categories travel together, whether they want to or not. Partly because everyone’s terrified of getting separated, and partly because there’s no assigned section for the more hardcore element.

In many Western European stadiums, by contrast, ultras are confined to designated stands – separate from regular attendees.

GELAL: In South America, everyone at the game is a die-hard supporter. If you don’t love the team, you won’t bother going – the experience is just too intense. You’ve got riot police with rubber bullets, dogs trained to take a chunk out of your leg… and if something happens to you? Tough luck. Fall off a building? Your problem. Nobody’s checking up on you.

 

When attending away matches, Gelal joined other supporters to travel – often for hours – on chartered buses.

GELAL: The buses were pieces of shit, probably not even road legal. Everyone’s drunk, carrying weapons, alcohol, drugs – everything you shouldn’t have on a bus. And for lower-division games, sometimes the authorities don’t even know a match is happening. So, you roll into some town, stop for gas, and suddenly the guys on your bus go on a rampage: clean out a store, grab all the food and drinks, pile back in, and keep going.

Then there’s the issue of toilets – or lack thereof.

GELAL: You’ve got a packed bus full of guys drinking, and the driver refuses to stop because you’re running late. So what do they do? Cut a water bottle in half, piss in it, and toss it out the window. If it hits someone – a random bystander, a rival supporter – it can spiral into anything. Maybe they retaliate. Maybe a cop pulls you over. Maybe it turns into a full-on street brawl. Nothing was planned; shit just happened.

Upon arrival at the stadium, infrastructure and policing strategies aimed to separate supporter groups through controlled entry points and dedicated stands for home and away fans.

GELAL: Once shuffled inside, the gates locked. No getting out. Unless you got seriously injured – like beaten to a pulp – you weren’t leaving. They’d stick you in some fenced-off section surrounded by barbed wire, bricks, and stones from construction sites, which people inevitably used as weapons. Total chaos.

I imagine it’s easy to get swept along.

GELAL: Well, when you’re locked in a cage and treated like an animal, you start acting like one. That’s just how it goes. Again, if you didn’t grow up around it, you’d never understand. People might think, ‘Oh, he’s just off to watch some football. Like a tennis match or so.’ No, motherfucker – you might not come home. There have been at least 230 deaths from football-related violence in Argentina.

What if you got stranded?

GELAL: <laughs> If the bus left you behind in some town, you were walking for two days. And that wasn’t rare – it happened regularly. No cell phones back then. No one’s helping you. Wearing the wrong colours, stuck in enemy territory? You’re fucked. Everything about those trips was insane. Good times, man.

 

Between the weekend madness, Gelal channelled that stadium energy – its emotional intensity, rabid chanting, and ever-looming threat of violence – into new music. He’d brought his BC Rich Warlock guitar with him and borrowed a battery-driven Marshall MS-2 mini-amp from a local friend.

GELAL: I rented a room downtown on the sixth floor – no air conditioning, no heating. Classic apartment construction: brick, tile, no carpets, nothing to absorb sound. I had a bed, a nightstand, and some tiny table; that was it. No TV, no distractions. I just plugged that son of a bitch in and started playing.

To archive the riffs he came up with, Gelal recorded them using a small cassette player.

GELAL: I’d record, rewind, listen, adjust – keeping the tape rolling the whole time. When it reached the end, I’d grab another one. Once a sequence of riffs felt long enough, I thought, ‘Okay, that’s a song.’ I never used notation or tabs; everything was just patterns in my hands. I remember riffs by how my fingers move. To actually play them again, I’d have to listen back and figure it out.

Do you thrive writing solo?

GELAL: Very much so. When you’re on your own, there’s no one to guide you or say whether something works; you just follow your instincts. I’ve never been the type to write music in a rehearsal room, jamming with a full band.

Have you tried?

GELAL: Not for G.B.K., no; I don’t even know what could’ve come out of that. In those settings, there’s always outside influence – the drummer pulling one way, the bassist another. You might stumble onto something cool together, but it’s not necessarily your vision anymore.

 

At the time, GRAND BELIAL’S KEY had yet to find a new label. While Gelal was staying in Argentina, an offer came through from Evil Horde Records in Curitiba, Brazil.

GELAL: Since Wood-Nymph had folded, I was basically back to square one – and not many labels were reaching out. So, when this Evil Horde guy made an offer, I said, ‘Okay, let’s do it. The album title will be “Judeobeast Assassination”.’ Right away, he goes, ‘Whoa! We can’t call it that.’

Perhaps worth noting is that this objection came from the individual behind a band named MURDER RAPE.

GELAL: I thought, ‘Man, here we go again.’ No matter what I did, someone always wanted a watered-down version. Apparently, Brazil had anti-hate laws or some shit, so I suggested flipping the title backwards – like the GOATPENIS demo – but he wasn’t having it. At that point, I just went, ‘Fuck it.’ I never even saw the title as particularly extreme; I didn’t get the fucking problem.

Did you have an overarching concept in mind already?

GELAL: I’d sketched out a loose story… or not exactly a story, but rather a summary of the themes. The songs were initially just independent music ideas; then, I assigned titles, wrote lyrics, and figured out where the vocals would fit.

Parallel to the guitar composition, Gelal worked on the lyrics for “Judeobeast Assassination”. Thematically, GRAND BELIAL’S KEY expanded on the theological critique of “Mocking the Philanthropist” to include both the New and Old Testaments.

GELAL: Like most bands, our early lyrics were solid enough. Over time, they became more refined, serious, and elaborate. I’d started reading a lot more, digging deeper into religious texts – the Old Testament, New Testament, Torah – and really trying to understand exactly what this scene supposedly stands against.

The Torah is the central scripture of Judaism and overlaps heavily with the Old Testament, forming the first part of the Christian Bible. They share many of the same books, especially those covering early biblical history, laws, and creation myths, while the New Testament builds on these foundations with the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

GELAL: Let’s be honest, a lot of ‘Satanic’ lyrics mean nothing. They’re just mindlessly opposing whatever’s there – drawing from darkness, evil, and horror movie imagery without any real substance. I wanted to go further. ‘What exactly am I ridiculing? What’s the angle here?’ So, “Judeobeast Assassination” came to focus on the inseparability of Judeo-Christian traditions.

The phrase ‘Judeo-Christian’ refers to the shared scriptural and ethical foundations of Judaism and Christianity – traditions historically and theologically intertwined, despite later divergences. Christianity builds upon Jewish texts and teachings, but followers of Judaism neither recognise the New Testament nor accept Jesus as the Messiah.

GELAL: I definitely didn’t envision this path from the start, but that’s where it led me. Eventually, I’d said all I could about Christianity. But guess what? There’s plenty left to say about pre-Christian beliefs, rituals, and the truly horrific episodes in older scriptures. You don’t need horror movies – the Bible has it all.

Although often treated as a unified work, the Bible is actually a compilation of texts written across many centuries by different authors. Some passages are historical narratives, others are prophecy, poetry, law, or divine revelation. These writings blend myth, theology, folklore, and moral instruction, shaped by generations of redaction, interpretation, and translation.

GELAL: Even if I wasn’t questioning whether certain events actually happened, I was interpreting everything through my perspective, reframing it in a more vulgar way. But really, I didn’t exaggerate any of it. Nothing in recorded human history is more depraved, violent, or treacherous than what’s in those religious texts. Incest, betrayal, infanticide, fratricide – it’s all right there.

The Old Testament and Torah contain numerous stories involving violence and taboo, often committed by central biblical figures. Among the more widely known is the global flood narrative (Genesis 6–9), in which God, regretting His creation of mankind, drowns the entire world – men, women, children, and animals – sparing only Noah, his family, and a boatful of beasts.

In Genesis 38, Onan is struck dead by God for ‘spilling his seed on the ground’ rather than impregnating his dead brother’s wife, as custom dictated. In 2 Kings 6, during a siege-induced famine, two mothers agree to eat their sons. One kills and cooks her child; the other hides hers, sparking a dispute they bring before the king. In Ezekiel 4, the prophet is commanded to lie on his side for 390 days, then switch to the other for forty more, while eating bread baked over cow dung – a symbolic act representing the burden of Israel’s iniquity.

Some passages veer into outright surrealism. In 2 Kings 2, the prophet Elisha is mocked by a group of boys for being bald; in response, he curses them in the name of the Lord, and two bears emerge from the woods to maul forty-two of the children. In Exodus 4, God suddenly attempts to kill Moses during a journey – though it’s never explained why – until his wife cuts off their son’s foreskin and touches it to Moses’ feet.

Foreskins, in fact, appear with curious frequency. In 1 Samuel 18, King Saul demands one hundred Philistine foreskins as a bride price for his daughter. David returns with two hundred. The term ‘uncircumcised’ is frequently used as a pejorative marker for enemy tribes – Philistines in particular – and carries strong moral and ethnic implications. It’s an epithet for the impure or unchosen, underscoring the importance of genital status in biblical identity politics.

GELAL: I was consciously pressing certain buttons, thinking about exactly what I wanted to provoke. And boy, did it work. It pissed a lot of people off. But for what, exactly? That’s the part I don’t get. Because most metalheads just want to oppose Jesus – that’s the ‘safe’ option. But if you dare question Moses? Suddenly, you’re ‘problematic’.