Behemoth
Grom
[Solistitium]
"Behemoth! Oh Thee Of Cliched Artwork And Logo! Oh Great Behemoth!
Where have you been all my life?" - Heard echoing from my bedroom late
last week.
As you might have guessed, I was (WAS!) never a Behemoth fan. Every time I'd see a Behemoth disc with its patented black&white pencil art (ala Burzum); the Olde-English font all-in-capitals (ala Bathory, Burzum) and the fact that seemingly no two Behemoth discs are released by the same label, I pass over them, "A poor man's Darkthrone", if you'd pardon my (past) ignorance.
A couple of weeks ago though, I saw the light. A friend dubbed their back-catalog for me (hail Zoz), and I've been hooked ever since, so hooked in fact, that I went out and bought "Grom" on sight. To any who haven't heard previous Behemoth releases, its grubby, epic, trebly black metal, with weirdo arrangements and twists. Onto "Grom".
"Grom" is evidently the rebirth of Behemoth, with the addition (correct me if I'm wrong here, please!) of drummer, Baal Ravenlock (whose light corpse makes him look like Pete Steele from Type O Negative), who can quite easily be mentioned in the same breath as the drummers from Emperor and Abigor. Whirlwind blast beats, thunderous low-tom rolls/breaks, and the ubiquitous hihat rhythms of say, Hellhammer (Mayhem).
Opening with a (short) eerie military-march type intro, the band kicks into "The Dark Forest (cast me your spell)", A whipping frenzy of a song that glides effortlessly from typical black metal rhythms to monumental death metal breaks, and then to an acoustic-over-double-bass section, female vocals, the lot. Ripping stuff!
"Dragon's Lair (Cosmic Flames And Four Barbaric Seasons)" is another bottler, incorporating a lot of folk melodies, & blast beats; as does "Lasy Pomorsa", which has a real Satyricon feel to it, but its unmistakably Behemoth of course.
There are times on this disc, when you'll swear the band you were listening to was actually Abigor, or Emperor, mainly because of the drumming, but also due to the (greatly) improved production employed on this album.
This disc PISSES all over Satyricon's latest effort; Its better than Abigor's latest; I'm not a fan of Marduk's new style (this is just as heavy/hateful, but without that annoying choppiness of Marduk); in fact, and I don't know whether I should be glad or ashamed of saying this, but I'd have to say this is the best BLACK metal album I've heard all year. A fucking Corker.
RATING : 9 out of 10, easily.
© 1998 brett
As you might have guessed, I was (WAS!) never a Behemoth fan. Every time I'd see a Behemoth disc with its patented black&white pencil art (ala Burzum); the Olde-English font all-in-capitals (ala Bathory, Burzum) and the fact that seemingly no two Behemoth discs are released by the same label, I pass over them, "A poor man's Darkthrone", if you'd pardon my (past) ignorance.
A couple of weeks ago though, I saw the light. A friend dubbed their back-catalog for me (hail Zoz), and I've been hooked ever since, so hooked in fact, that I went out and bought "Grom" on sight. To any who haven't heard previous Behemoth releases, its grubby, epic, trebly black metal, with weirdo arrangements and twists. Onto "Grom".
"Grom" is evidently the rebirth of Behemoth, with the addition (correct me if I'm wrong here, please!) of drummer, Baal Ravenlock (whose light corpse makes him look like Pete Steele from Type O Negative), who can quite easily be mentioned in the same breath as the drummers from Emperor and Abigor. Whirlwind blast beats, thunderous low-tom rolls/breaks, and the ubiquitous hihat rhythms of say, Hellhammer (Mayhem).
Opening with a (short) eerie military-march type intro, the band kicks into "The Dark Forest (cast me your spell)", A whipping frenzy of a song that glides effortlessly from typical black metal rhythms to monumental death metal breaks, and then to an acoustic-over-double-bass section, female vocals, the lot. Ripping stuff!
"Dragon's Lair (Cosmic Flames And Four Barbaric Seasons)" is another bottler, incorporating a lot of folk melodies, & blast beats; as does "Lasy Pomorsa", which has a real Satyricon feel to it, but its unmistakably Behemoth of course.
There are times on this disc, when you'll swear the band you were listening to was actually Abigor, or Emperor, mainly because of the drumming, but also due to the (greatly) improved production employed on this album.
This disc PISSES all over Satyricon's latest effort; Its better than Abigor's latest; I'm not a fan of Marduk's new style (this is just as heavy/hateful, but without that annoying choppiness of Marduk); in fact, and I don't know whether I should be glad or ashamed of saying this, but I'd have to say this is the best BLACK metal album I've heard all year. A fucking Corker.
RATING : 9 out of 10, easily.
© 1998 brett