Behemoth – Evangelion Rating: 3.0/5.0 – Good, but lacks the energy from earlier releases Label: Nuclear Blast (USA | EU) Websites:behemoth.pl | myspace.com/behemoth Release Date(s): USA: 8.11.2009 | EU: 07.08.2009
Maybe I’m alone in this, but Behemoth’s tremendous success over the last few years, starting with the record Demigod has longbeen a great surprise to me. Not that the band isn’t good and doesn’t deserve the success. Frankly, they are great and they do deserve the success, but just the idea that a blackened death metal band from Poland would be causing such a stir wasn’t something that had crept into my mind a few years ago, before they released their first real popular “opus.” Demigod of course was followed up by a weaker The Apostasy which, while good, couldn’t possibly have lived up to the expectations of the earlier material. And, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it—it’s probably never bad to be hotly anticipated) for the band, Evangelion is one of the most hotly anticipated records of the year. I’ve been trying to get my hands on it for a while and now that I’ve finally got a promo version of it, I’ve been playing the hell out of it.
And frankly, I’ve been fairly impressed. Behemoth consistently writes heavy (brutal even) tracks that pummel the listener into submission. The riffs are primal, heavy and the drums are a violent attack of extreme precision. Tracks like “Transmigrating Beyond Realms ov Amenti” rip your face off with their killer Egyptian sounding riffs and while the band isn’t really very technical the music is never boring (I particularly enjoy the orchestrations). Evangelion has just enough melody to keep you hooked, and enough brutality to make you want to turn it up as loud as you can and piss off your neighbors. The production on this record is slick, but thick, though not as thick as The Apostasy or Demigod, which I found to be surprising. And, from a songwriting perspective, it seems like there’s a lot more slow tracks, even “Ov Fire and the Void” is much more plodding than the band’s previous work as well.
Of course, since the band went from being “Christ Raping Black Metal” to being “Ra Raping Death Metal,” their records have been consistently great, but Evangelion seems to lack the energy of earlier records. While certain tracks and riffs might stand out, the whole album lacks the real visceral feel from Behemoth’s two classics Demigod and Satanica. And while I was assured by Nergal that I would love the band’s “new opus,” I find that record feels a little blasé at points. It feels, unfortunately, that while the image and the presentation gets bigger and bigger, the quality and originality are becoming less stand out. This might be due to fatigue, from working straight and hard for the last few years.
However, don’t be fooled by the fact that I didn’t immediately latch onto every moment of this record. Frankly, while it’s not the band’s new opus, it’s still a pretty good record and a lot better than much of the stuff that’s coming out this summer. Behemoth seem to have a very good feel for what they’re doing and walking the fine line between good groove, brutality and melody. The vocals are raw and riveting, the lyrics are as evil as ever and the approach is excellent (not to mention probably the coolest cover art on a record that I’ve seen in a long time–never underestimate the power of cool cover art), despite the use of the word “ov” in nearly every song, which I think is quite possibly the silliest black metal trend of all time.
Behemoth pretty much kicks ass and Evangelion is no exception to this, even if it’s not quite as good as some of their earlier material. Pick it up and go see these guys live.
I just reviewed the new Behemoth record on here, and while it was good, there was one thing that had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the record that stood out for me. I couldn’t really include it as a major critique in the record, but now I can at least mention it… OV.
Ov? Really? The first time I saw this stupid thing was with the band Kult Ov Azazel. And yeah, that was stupid, but I didn’t think much of it because, well, unfortunately intentional misspellings are standard fare in metal. Katatonia for example or, some of my personal favorites are the misuses of vowels from other languages: Mötley Crüe (I’m not actually sure how to phonetically spell how that sounds, but if you were to pronounce it correctly it would be fucking ridiculous), Mötörhead is another one that thought that the “Ö” (O umlaut) was really cool looking. But my personal favorite is the band Dååth which pronounces their name “Dath” like, rhymes with bath, but spells it “Doath” like the ‘o’ in the word boat. And actually, two ‘Å’s, for those of you who don’t know, actually would be an extra long ‘O’ sound, since Å is actually two ‘A’s put together.
Let’s not even talk about nu-metal, which spells EVERYTHING wrong. Travesties like Limp Bizkit, Korn, and of course Linkin Park, forcing their shared stupidity onto the rest of the world, which actually likes to spell words correctly. And even can. So not only are these assholes responsible for irritatingly blending hip hop and metal into a travesty which should despised, but they also encourage stupidity among our youth!
But, I feel like OV takes it to a new level. How fucking pretentious do you have to be to intentionally misspell a common preposition like “of”? Do you think it’s stupid to use said preposition? Then use the fucking possessive/genetive case! You know like “Metal’s stupid trends” as opposed to “Stupid trends OV metal!” C’mon, this is ridiculous and unnecessary and it makes me want to start a fire and feed it with babies! How hard is this stuff? Not very, in my opinion. But heck, you know me, I like to spell things correctly. I even attempt to use proper grammar.
The sad thing is this, as a person who is interested in language, it is obvious to me that one cannot control how language is used. Every generation and decade brings us new words (för de svenskarna som läser: kolla boken: Världens dåligaste språk av Fredrik Lindström—den är skitbra och förklarar jättemycket om ämnet) and language is meant to be played with. According to some linguists, no matter what your grammar books say, if you’re an inborn speaker of a language you physically can’t be wrong about your own language. So we invent new words, spellings, combinations and we try our hardest to coin new phrases. Things like “bootylicious” end up in the dictionary (and my spellcheck no longer picks it up) and life continues forward with English as a functional language.
But there is a little language fascist in me that just wants to smack all the jackasses who insist on misspelling words for the sake of being COOL. Kvlt? Ov? Wëll löök hërë yöü möröns.. IT’S STÜPÏD! SÖ STÖP!
Behemoth has posted the 5th studio diary on YouTube for viewing. These diaries chronicle their studio experience—they’re also pretty fucking cool. This is, of course, all in the lead up to their new studio album Evangelion which will be released in August and is highly anticipated by this Angry Metal Guy.
Well, as I said before, the new material which was posted on their myspace sounded totally great and I’m really stoked about this, too. Once again, playing the Nile card for the win–heck, we can’t all be totally original all the time. Anyway, my favorite part is where Nergal, in his not at all pretentious way, says “I’m sure our fans will worship our new opus.” Gee, Nergal. You’re so modest.
Part of me wants to hate Evangelion just because now, but unfortunately, the material in that video sounds way too tight for me to hate. Behemoth has really become a force to be reckoned with.
So, Behemoth has posted a new track called “Ov Fire and the Void” on their Myspace page. This track is seriously awesome, and sounds like they’re doing a better job of avoiding sounding like Nile and instead they have a much more unique blackened death sound. I seriously can’t wait for this record now. Also, the cover art is fucking awesome.
Apparently they’re also going to be out touring forever from even before this album is released. Check out this list of American tour dates for The Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival–and there’s another two months of European dates on top of this:
July 10 – Marysville, CA @ Sleep Train Amphitheatre
July 11 – Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
July 12 – San Bernardino, CA @ Glen Helen Pavilion
July 14 – Seattle, WA @ White River Amphitheater
July 17 – Phoenix, AZ @ Cricket Pavilion
July 18 – Albuquerque, NM @ Journal Pavilion
July 19 – Denver, CO @ Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
July 21 – Kansas City, KS @ Sandstone Amphitheater
July 22 – St. Louis, MO @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
July 24 – Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheater
July 25 – Indianapolis, IN @ Verizon Wireless Music Centre
July 26 – Chicago, IL @ First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
July 28 – Toronto, ON @ Molson Amphitheater
July 29 – Scranton, PA @ Toyota Pavilion
July 31 – Cleveland, OH @ Blossom Music Center
August 1 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Post Gazette Pavilion
August 2 – Detroit, MI @ DTE Energy Music Theatre
August 4 – Boston, MA @ Tweeter Center
August 6 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Virginia Beach Amphitheater
August 7 – Camden, NJ @ Susquehanna Bank Center
August 8 – Hartford, CT @ New England Dodge Music Center
August 9 – Washington, DC @ Nissan Pavilion
August 11 – Tampa, FL @ Ford Amphitheatre
August 12 – West Palm Beach, FL @ Cruzan Amphitheatre
August 14 – Dallas, TX @ Superpages.com Center
August 15 – Houston, TX @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
August 16 – San Antonio, TX @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
been a great surprise to me. Not that the band isn’t good and doesn’t deserve the success. Frankly, they are great and they do deserve the success, but just the idea that a blackened death metal band from Poland would be causing such a stir wasn’t something that had crept into my mind a few years ago, before they released their first real popular “opus.” Demigod of course was followed up by a weaker The Apostasy which, while good, couldn’t possibly have lived up to the expectations of the earlier material. And, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it—it’s probably never bad to be hotly anticipated) for the band, Evangelion is one of the most hotly anticipated records of the year. I’ve been trying to get my hands on it for a while and now that I’ve finally got a promo version of it, I’ve been playing the hell out of it.
