Behemoth Archives - NO CLEAN SINGING

BEHEMOTH: “OPVS CONTRA NATVRAM”

Sep 092022

(DGR has some thoughts to share about the new 12th album from Poland’s Behemoth, which will be released on September 16th by Nuclear Blast.)

It has been a long-standing tradition of Joe Baressi that whenever he works on a metal album, he is credited as ‘Evil Joe Baressi’. That’s pretty funny, considering that often Joe’s name is brought up more in line with groups like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Tool, Queens Of The Stone Age, Volbeat, and a bunch of other humongous rock acts over the years. Thus, you get ‘Evil Joe Baressi’ whenever he and his team work on a metal album.

It is certainly an unusual name to see attached to one of the bigger purveyors of Satan-as-spectacle out there — Behemoth. There’s been a little hay made in the press over the name drop, although it’s not like the band strayed well outside their comfort zone, since they’ve involved longtime collaborator Daniel Bergstrand as well. However, this may also be one of the more interesting new things happening with Behemoth‘s latest release Opvs Contra Natvram, because otherwise this is “as expected” a Behemoth album as you could possibly expect. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BEHEMOTH, ALTARS, RIBSPREADER

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC No Responses »

May 132022

In the outer world, Friday the 13th is often perceived as an unlucky day. But in the crypts, swamps, deserts, and various infernal and post-apocalyptic dimensions where most of our beloved music dwells, the signifiers of luck are reversed. Which makes it strange that on this Friday the 13th we have no music or video premieres on our calendar.

On the one hand, since I write almost all of our premieres, that should have meant I had a block of free time to round up some new songs and videos. On the other hand, I used most of the block going through the thousand NCS e-mails I had mostly ignored all week long. What did that get me? Links to about a hundred new songs and clips I thought might conceivably be interesting — and almost no time to listen and watch. I question my judgment.

To deal with the conundrum, I just quickly picked the following three items and deferred the rest of the sifting process to some point later today or tonight, with the goal of having a more fulsome round-up on Saturday. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: BEHEMOTH, LORNA SHORE, ZEAL & ARDOR, SLAUGHTER TO PREVAIL, NYTT LAND

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Jun 122021

Well, this didn’t go at all like I expected.

First and foremost, I didn’t expect to write anything for the site today. Thanks to the revival of the Waxing Lyrical series by Sir Andy Synn (no, he hasn’t been knighted yet, but surely it’s just a matter of time, innit?), we had a Saturday post. No need for me to make one. I thought I’d just spend some time listening instead.

It happened that the first thing I explored was a new song and video by the Siberian shamans Nytt Land — and then unexpected things began to happen. I noticed a new Behemoth video in the YouTube sidebar that I hadn’t known about, so I watched/heard it. And then I noticed a new Lorna Shore video in the YouTube sidebar and thought, what the hell why not? And then the YouTube sidebars led me to Zeal & Ardor and Slaughter To Prevail. And now here we are. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 33): BEHEMOTH, VOLKOLUN, SEAR BLISS

MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018 6 Responses »

Feb 252019

With this post I’m beginning the final week of this list, bound and determined to end it by Friday, when the third month of the year begins. With that brutal deadline in mind, I spent hours this past weekend looking at what was left on my gigantic list of nominees for these awards and listening to many of them. The listening was enjoyable, but it was still a harrowing experience — because even though this 2018 list has turned out to be longer than in any previous year, there are still SO MANY SONGS I’d like to recognize, beginning with these three:

BEHEMOTH

Behemoth‘s latest album, I Loved You At Your Darkest, seemed to stir up a hornet’s nest of controversy. Sure, there were plenty of people who lavished it with praise, but a lot of the accolades came from sources that seem to reflexively give every release by every “big name” their highest ratings. The album didn’t evoke quite so much enthusiasm in other quarters, where fans were dismayed by some of the ideas the band tried on for size, and by the more “rock ‘n’ roll” feel of the album as a whole. Continue reading »

DGR’S QUEST TO TURN 2018 INTO A COFFEE TABLE BOOK – ISSUE ONE: 50-41

LISTMANIA 2018 5 Responses »

Dec 312018

(DGR is actually turning NCS into a coffee table book, but slowly, one day at a time, from now through Friday.)

About halfway through the year I actually thought I was going to make it through the year-end with a solid Top 30 list and nothing more. For a good chunk of the year, 2018 seemed to move in fits and starts — there would be large batches of album releases and then a couple of quiet weeks, then another small collection, and so on. A lot of the more consistent older guard were on something of an “off year” too, so at first I wasn’t expecting to see a large cast of repeats from two years ago making themselves known. I’ve gotten used to a two-to-three year album cycle, so I half-expected stuff to start pointing towards a real loaded front-half of 2019.

But alas, instead the back-half of 2018 turned out to a be a flood. Not just in bands that I’ve consistently enjoyed either, but a whole bunch of new faces that have either been hammering it out over the years and put out some genuine surprises, or people with some absolutely stunning first-time exposures on my end. Not only that, but who would’ve expected an actually pretty solid -core resurgence, with a lot of groups that had thought to hang it up deciding 2018 would be a good year to resurface and put out some stunningly good releases (at least in some cases).

As a result, 2018 proved to be an absolutely massive year. In some ways I think people’s year-end lists are reflecting just how vibrant the year was for our specific subsection of the musical sphere. While people lament that rock ‘n’ roll is dying or has become lame, heavy metal seems perfectly content to just be the constantly angry and forever roiling collective of music — as if it has found a sort of equilibrium in comparison to the mainstream world outside. Which is how you wind up with stupid shit like this, where I once again have FIFTY (warning ahead of time: if you think this introduction is getting verbose, do I have a surprise for you) albums to talk about in wrapping up this tire fire of a year. Continue reading »

BEHEMOTH: “I LOVED YOU AT YOUR DARKEST”

Album Reviews 6 Responses »

Sep 212018

(Andy Synn provides these early and unfiltered impressions of the new album from Behemoth, which will be released by Nuclear Blast on October 5th.)

Over the years I’ve discovered that the term “too big to fail” is one that doesn’t just apply to the banking industry, it can also refer to certain bands who, for various reasons, have reached a certain level of fame and success which makes them essentially “immune” to criticism – no matter what they do, enough of their fans will buy whatever they put out, shout down any disapproving comments, and make excuses for their actions, to guarantee they stay on top.

This isn’t helped by the fact that certain publications, both physical and digital, tend to reserve their big scores for the big names, and lavish the most coverage on the bands with the most exposure.

Essentially, once you’ve reached this level, your success becomes something of a self-perpetuating cycle (as long as you don’t %$&! it up).

Now, like it or not, I’m sure very few people would disagree that Behemoth have long-since passed this point (most likely with the massive success of Evangelion, though I’m sure there are those who would argue that this happened even earlier), and that the release of the career-defining The Satanist simply helped cement their status as one of the Metal scene’s biggest names.

The main question which needs answering now, therefore, is… does their latest effort actually deserve to be praised entirely on its own merits, or is it likely to be one of those albums celebrated more for who it is, rather than what it actually sounds like? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (BY DGR): BEHEMOTH, CAST THE STONE, SOREPTION, ABORTED

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Aug 062018

(DGR steps in for round-up duty to begin our posts for this new week.)

In case you missed it, one of the recurring themes around the NCS corner of the interwebs is that if the Comments section doesn’t come for us, then it’s the day job that will. Such was the case this weekend when our esteemed editor (who is likely back home by now) found himself on the self-described whirlwind trip to New Mexico for a few days. As will inevitably happen, of course, that means there is going to be a massive blast of new music that we’ll likely catch a good amount of, but not all of, and so those of us who are able to will step into the role of news person.

And so the metal sphere gathered up four very big names and decided that this weekend would be a fucking fantastic time to jam out a whole bunch of news and try to catch us off-guard. Well not us, I say… at least we’ll get to it on Monday maybe. So I’ve gathered up the aforementioned four very large news stories from bands with albums upcoming (one of which actually came out last Friday!) for you folks to start the week off with, all in one handy post that… as is standard…is pretty fucking heavy on the death metal. Continue reading »

TOURISM: BEHEMOTH AND OBSCURA ANNOUNCE HEADLINING NORTH AMERICAN TOURS (WITH SOME VERY IMPRESSIVE SUPPORT)

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC No Responses »

Jul 162018

I’ll make this quick:

First, within the last hour or so, Behemoth announced a North American tour (Ecclesia Diabolica America 2018) with support from At the Gates and Wolves in the Throne Room. It begins on October 20th in Phoenix and ends on November 24th in Los Angeles, and includes stops in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, and Edmonton, as well as 18 U.S. States. Here’s the current schedule: Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: BEHEMOTH, GORGUTS, UADA, BLACK SPACE RIDERS

Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Apr 072016

We had such a big line-up of premieres and reviews yesterday that I didn’t have time to pull together a round-up of new things, so I’ll do some of that today. As a consequence of waiting, the first couple of items in this round-up of new videos (and one new song excerpt) will no doubt have been seen by most of you already. I still want to leave them here because they’re so good — though I don’t think I need to say much about them. The second two are somewhat more recent, and are by bands who don’t have quite the name recognition among metal heads as the first two, so I’ll spill a few words about those.

BEHEMOTH

Nergal has a reliably interesting artistic vision for Behemoth’s videos, and a knack for enlisting help from talented people in making them a reality — including Sharon Ehman of Toxic Visions for the costume and prop design in this video, among a long list of others (who are identified in the notes to the video here). Of course, the dramatic natural setting for this video is the real star. Continue reading »

TOURISM: BLASFEMIA AMERIKA 2016

Metal News 5 Responses »

Jan 122016

This should be interesting — a North American tour headlined by Behemoth with support from Myrkur, and a traveling exhibition featuring the creations of Sharon Toxic. Behemoth has never failed to disappoint in the 3 (or 4?) times I’ve seen them. It’s always powerful entertainment. And I confess I’m curious to see Myrkur live. It’s a moot point for me, however, since the tour won’t reach the Pacific Northwest, but maybe it will land in your vicinity.

Because I’m in a bit of a hurry, I’m going to excerpt a few passages from the press release we received, followed by a list of all the dates: Continue reading »

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