BEHEMOTH „Demigod”

Music: Black/Death Metal
Website: http://www.behemoth.pl
Duration: 40:47 (10 songs)
Cool Songs: Conquer All, Towards Babylon, Slaves Shall Serve

So, this is Behemoth’s fourth full length release in the last five years (they’ve also released the EP ”Conjuration”). This fact is not always encouraging for a band nowadays, as most bands release second-class albums in very short time, due to their label contracts, or just to make money. I honestly believe Behemoth do not fit to this category. Every release of this band is at least astonishing. So is Demigod; a quite better, more interesting, more “wrought” successor for “Zos Kia Kultus”. To be honest I believe “Demigod” isn’t better than “Satanica” or “Thelema.6” which are real monuments for the genre. But it’s an excellent album, quite mature, genius, with a truly remarkable sound!

Behemoth's seventh release amalgamates their own version of thrashy death metal and modern US death metal, in a truly unique and massive sounding way. Unique and remarkable is the result of the above genre combination due to the special musical personality of this band. As a result we can find in “Demigod” a continuous tempo changing, acoustic parts and virtuoso-high speed solos mixed with the known amagalm of heavy riffs and blastbeating battery. As far as for the black metal past of Behemoth, just forget it. The polish occult trio seems to prefer a more into-your-face musical expression in their last efforts, and this fact is most of all obvious in their current release.
Great riffs by Nergal, ingenious lead guitar parts spilling over middle eastern feelings, quite melodic acoustic guitar parts (great ideas by the session guitarist Seth), Inferno’s best effort behind the drumkit so far, impressive lyrical concept, excellent-as always- orchestrations, massive production synthesize the opus “Demigod”. The album’s opening track (“Sculpting The Throne Ov Seth”) starts with a great acoustic part, but after a few secs it easily evolves to a massive destruction proclamation. A great and quite contagious acoustic part you can also hear at the end of “The Nephilim Rising”.

The difference in the present Behemoth’s release comparing to their past efforts is their work on vocals. The vocals for Behemoth tend to become a separate instrument for their music. Nergal’s demonic spells are a trademark for the band. The production is just excellent for the genre, the mixing was “commited” by the leader of the band Nergal and the mastering by the famous Daniel Bergstand.
For the ones of you that consider Behemoth as Morbid Angel wannabes I can just recommend you to give a chance to this band and have your ears open. Highlight of the album is the participation of Karl Sanders (Nile) with a solo part in “Xul”. An extremely “Buy Or Die Release” for all death metal fans and not only.

note: 09/10

Tracklist

1. Sculpting the throne ov Seth
2. Demigod
3. Conquer All
4. The Nephilim rising
5. Towards Babylon
6. Before Aeons came
7. Mysterium Coniunctions (Hermanubis)
8. XUL
9. Slaves Shall Serve
10. The reign ov Shemsu-Hor

Line-up

Vocals, guitars: Nergal
Bass: Orion
Drums: Inferno