Black metal Behemoth. Fuck. Yeah. Suffice to say their blackened death stuff isn’t horrible, but their gold will always be in the creepy, atmospheric, raw black metal that they do rather well. This album is an amalgamation of all their demos and some unreleased tracks, and I got to say it is rather impressive. It’s got an intensely dark atmosphere helped by the eerie fillers, horror-movie esque-riffs and the tortured vocals of Nergal.
Absurder21 said, One of the great factors of this album, I found, is where the band found the right niche for production. It isn’t clean, like Dimmu Borgir, so you don’t lose any atmosphere, yet it is clean enough that you can actually hear the instruments individually. As I mentioned before, there is a sort of empty, hollow atmosphere to this added by the creepy fillers/samples, these usually being in the vein of a dark synth with satanic chant or a wolf howling at the moon etc, which gives an all round amazingly evil vibe. The covers of Aggressor and Deathcrush are pretty good too. Hellhammer and Mayhem obviously do it better, but this is quite solid, and surprisingly enough they don’t kill the atmosphere despite being fairly “fun” black metal songs.
The axe work on here is actually fairly diverse for black metal. Your average song is your blistering fast riffs, but there are also a lot of dark, mellow slower riffs which are cool. A lot of the riffs retain melody to, but not in a weak way like Dimmu Borgir or later Lord Belial. You also have the odd acoustic guitar included to add an interesting kind of medieval feel to it, like in the song “From Hornedlands to Lindisfarne”, which can also be noted for using some cool, dark synths. The guitar work isn’t really that technical to be honest, but there is the odd melodic solo and fills which are satisfactory. This all together fits in with the dynamic drum work, which is not your standard double-bass barrage, in fact it is barely ever like that, even during the fast songs. The drumming is usually fairly diverse incorporating the entire drum set most of the time, yet even when the drumming is slow, you can still head bang to it! The sound on it is also quite perfect. It’s bassy, yet not so much that it drowns out anything else, but so much that it comes off as powerful.
Related Behemoth - Demigod (2004)
Nergal actually displays a fairly diverse range when it comes to black metal vocals; he is almost a mime to every style. In some songs he is able to do the talking-style of bands like Mayhem, the high pitched, incoherent screech like Emperor, the average black metal vocals and then his unique, deep growl on the blackened death song "Transylvanian Forest". His voice always fits the atmosphere to each song, as some songs are more relevant to a more tortured voice or maybe angry vox. The lyrics generally cover topics such as Satan, death, suicide and winter, typical black metal from Scandinavia, so nothing remarkable there.
I must say, for a demo album, Demonica is listenable in every sense, instead of just being a history lesson about the band. You do get some repetition because some songs are fused into others, but this is rare. If you are a fan of black metal, especially Behemoths’ early work, check this out now. If you are missing some of their black metal work, here is one last fix.
Sinisterror also gave review about it. He said, So I was browsing through an FYE and not finding a whole lot. Then I saw this thing sticking out of a Behemoth rack and picked it up. At first glance I thought it was a DVD but after reading the sticker and the back I knew it was music. Not only that but it was a bunch of unreleased tracks and Demos from Behemoth's black metal days. I also saw that it had covers of Hellhammer's Aggressor and Mayhem's Deathcrush! Then I saw the limited to 10000 copies sticker and was sold.
It begins with the "Return of the Northern Moon" demo. As a black metal fan I was thoroughly impressed by this demos production. Somehow Behemoth found the perfected midground between good production and raw production. Unlike a lot of black metal releases you can distinctly cut apart the guitars, from the vocals and the drums. But it's still surprisingly raw and has none of that clean shit that wanna black metal bands like Dimmu Burger have. Return of the Northern Moon is good, it has an old school black metal feel, somewhere along the lines of Darkthrone and Beherit. The Aggressor (Hellhammer) cover is interesting. You know it's a nice contrast when you move into that punchy groove that Hellhammer has and it still maintains a black metal feel with the vocalist doing his best Tom G Warrior impersonation. Cursed Angel of Doom is a very strong track and one of m favorites. Do yourself a favor and skip the rerecording of Transylvanian Forest though. It was recorded during the Demigod session so it has their new Death metal feel to it... You know with the vocalists hyper mechanical vocals that make Arch Enemy's recent releases sound like the rawest most brutal thing ever.
Disc Two holds the "From the Pagan Vastlands" demo on it and I can only say one thing about this piece of black metal... "God... Damn..." The first song, "From Hornedlands to Lindisfarne" starts off with an eastern acoustic guitar and then kicks in with a tremeloing black metal guitar riff all accompanied by an Emperoresque synth playing through the background. The awesomeness doesn't stop there, Behemoth seem intent on kicking you teeth out with the rest of this demo. "Return of the Northern Moon" was good but "From the Pagan Vastlands" is where Behemoth throw so many other black metal bands into the gutter. My favorite tracks are probably: "From Hornedlands to Lindisfarne" and "The Dance of the Pagan flames". The Deathcrush cover is good, too. I just thought I'd mention that.
This CD is for fans of bands like Emperor, Darkthrone, Mayhem, and Hellhammer. Probably not for fans of Dimmun Burger or Behemoth's Demigod taping. Unless of course those fans also happen to be fans of the aforementioned black metal bands.
Read also Dimmu Borgir - Abrahadabra (2010)
Last review is written by DM. He said, Behemoth. A name that carries a lot of weight, and a lot of stigma in metal circles. Considered the fathers of the Polish death/black/extreme metal scene, Behemoth has been both the center of celebration and consternation for over two decades. Cited on a 2007 list by Polish officials of artists who allegedly promote murder and Satanism, Behemoth is no stranger to controversy.
So, here we see “Demonica,” a box set collection of some of the band’s earliest material re-recorded, re-released and in some cases released for the first time. The collection mostly spans the first section of the band’s career, when they busied themselves with a more traditional blend of black metal.
What’s curious in these early, redone recordings is the direct correlation between the first cuts of Behemoth and their musical contemporaries of the decade before. The lineage of black metal beginning with Venom’s “Welcome to Hell” is stamped all over these songs. It’s rare in metal to see such a pure legacy go through so little change over the years, but Behemoth’s first demos, presented in full on “Demonica” are testament to the kind of influence that Venom had on early black metal bands like Behemoth and Darkthrone.
To that end, as a record of their progression through time, “Demonica” is a fine chronicle of where Behemoth began, and gives a window into the kind of musical and thematic ideology that Nergal started from. As such, the collection is raw and unfinished; it seems somewhat incomplete or tentative when compared with the band’s most recent works.
Yet, hearing the rough gallop and simple structures of the “…From the Pagan Vastlands” demo is a refreshing reminder that not only did Behemoth do much over the years to morph and shape the genre, but that even they began with clearly definable roots. It seems almost foreign now to hear the up-tempo, almost catchy pounding of “Thy Winter Kingdom” or the thin, varied, theatric construction of “From Hornedlands to Lindisframe” and associate it with the modern blackened death movement. Still, that’s where the origins lie, and as such “Demonica” is both a nostalgic journey and an important moment in the anthropology of those genres.
I guess the bottom line here, as odd as this is going to sound, is that I wasn’t nearly as offended as I hoped to be. The collection doesn’t drip with the same level of vicious, pointed ill will that Behemoth’s later albums are known for. “Demonica” is a stroll down memory lane (if blackened death metal bands can be said to do such things,) for a band that casts long shadows. Given Nergal’s condition and his continued recuperation, it’s probably fair to assume (and for fans, hope,) that “Demonica” represents a precursor to an album yet to come. For Behemoth completists and fans of those far gone early days of unmarketed black metal, “Demonica is worth a look. There are only 10,000 copies being released, so there’s a nice collect-ability angle as well.
Tracks
CD 1
- ....of My Worship
- Summoning of the Ancient Gods
- The Arrival
- Dark Triumph
- Monumentum
- Rise of the Blackstorm of Evil
- Aggressor
- Goat with a Thousand Young
- Bless Thee for Granting Me Pain
- Cursed Angel of Doom
- Transylvanian Forest
CD 2
- From Hornedlands to Lindisfarne
- Thy Winter Kingdom
- Summoning (of the Ancient Ones)
- The Dance of Pagan Flames
- Blackvisions of the Almighty
- Fields of Haar-Meggido
- Deathcrush (Mayhem cover)
- Moonspell Rites
- Blackvisions of the Almighty
- Pure Evil & Hate
- The Oak Between the Snows
- Spellcraft & Heathendom
If you like it, please buy it on their official website/merchandise.
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