It was inevitable that a band like Behemoth would eventually burst its way out of the underground, eyes filled with blackness and balled fists busting with energy and lightning. Front man Nergal has, clearly, forever had big ideas beyond even the grand visions of his lyrics, even bigger than the gigantic riffs he’s been churning out in recent years against the backdrop of ever more striking imagery. He’s developed a genius for the creative package, not to mention the controversy that seems to follow him around like a bright-eyed and willing pet. Going toe to toe with the Polish authorities on a number of occasions only fed his fire and those grandstanding on the other side seemed, for their own purposes, only too happy to help him out.
Advertising placements (all in a good cause, I might add), TV appearances and pop star-dating (no shrinking violet and who has herself been fined for breaching blasphemy laws) forced him into the faces of the Polish public in a way that he could only have dreamed of with his previous antics. And all this from a man whose merchandise includes a t-shirt with blood-red ‘Lies’ written across the pages of some heavy, unnamed, biblical tome (which may be Nergal’s first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone but is very probably the biblical tome you’re thinking of).
All that could simply be dismissed as the hunger for attention of a Kid Rock-style ego out of control and from a band that needed the gimmicks to fan the flames of interest with controversy. That is, if it wasn’t for the fact that Behemoth’s music is jaw-droppingly good and led by a man who is frightening driven and creative. Demigod was a brutal, death metal masterpiece that it seemed might be impossible to top. But The Apostasy did just that, spewing forth the sound of a band at the very top of its game. The power and the glory encapsulated in one band. The aural equivalent of ecstasy and agony. A swirling, extreme pummelling music that could easily be the sound track to days lost in time – a vision of titanic, indifferent gods who walked the earth and bestowed upon their favoured worshipers cruel and wonderful powers. Intelligent music that is not only difficult to pigeon-hole and toying with ideas that serve only to confuse the hell out of those too willing to dismiss other ways of thinking or new ideas – religious or otherwise.
The trajectory has been inevitable even since before the release of Evangelion. So it’s finally happened: the underground death metal band is destined for the over ground – or at least festival headlining slots in a country park near you. And perhaps knowing where this is all leading, Nergal has chosen his moment to strike a name across this album that is bound to get everyone from Catholic priests, teachers, ministers, politicians, your mum, dad and every fucker elsewhere and everywhere wound up into a frenzy. Heavy metal should incite controversy – and Behemoth wants to be that flag bearer. To crush everything in its wake and smash clear a path for others to follow.
But what about the album, I hear you mumble with that slithering tongue and those sharpened teeth? Is it any good? Let’s just be clear about this. This is no Black Album. Well, apart from the fact that it’s a lot more… black. This is not a band selling out the fans on whose shoulders it stood as it hankered after wider, global success. But it is a wider exploration of Behemoth’s sound and a whole new chapter on from the last three efforts. The Satanist lacks the end-to-end brutality it has become synonymous with over the past decade but in its place is a more insidious, thick, sweeping undercurrent of black metal that both steadies the pace and broadens the scope. Sweeping aside the constant full frontal assault for something all the more tactical.
Anyone who doubts that this band is still capable of classic Behemoth – bludgeoning percussion and miasmic riffs – should listen to In the Absence Ov Light – and the reprise which almost takes your head off – or Amen. But the ferocity is tempered by unhealthy doses of black metal with tracks like Messe Noir, The Satanist and Ben Sahar which give the whole album more room to breath. More brooding with coiled anger than frenzied. Feeding you with its dark material rather than just wandering into view, crushing your bones and leaving you on the floor in a bloody bag of skin. It’s perhaps even more self-reflecting, presumably explained by Nergal’s recent battle with leukaemia. But it is also the album that threatens to take Behemoth’s brand of uncompromising – and it is still uncompromising – extreme metal to a wider audience. Not the colourful two dimensional painting-by-numbers of Amon Amarth or the highly polished production and orchestral sounds of Dimmu Borgir. More the exploratative expression of Rotting Christ with the same staggering knack for good hooks. The slower pace, the thundering riffs and the combination of complexity and simplicity that will allow Behemoth to act as a beacon. A dark construct that leaves more openings in its sleek obsidian sides to allow the eager and the curious to enter and sample its terrors and delights in equal measure.
Is this all going to disappoint some fans of what we might call ‘classic’ Behemoth? Sure. I mean, you can actually hear the lyrics these days and you probably won’t feel this album knock you senseless time and again in the same immediate way as past releases. And spoken word passages?? Ahem…. But in other ways this represents a similar, if not bigger, leap forward that the band made on Demigod and a refreshing broadening of the sound that was hinted at on Evangelion.
Heavy metal needs bands like Behemoth in part because it really isn’t, despite what people say, all about the music. It’s about pushing the boundaries and leading from the front. It’s about having role models that stand up for the right not to conform, standing up to pointless doctrine and defensive laws that protect the interests of the few. If you haven’t got time to do all that yourself, then here’s a man who can. Be thankful for that, worthless mortal, and kneel before this gift from the gods.
(8.5/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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