Behemoth
Grom

THE REVIEW

What a great band Behemoth is.. Born in Poland as a Black Metal band, they gradually evolved, eventually reaching a point where they abandoned their roots and dedicated themselves to an intense Death Metal!

"Grom" was released in 1996, when Behemoth still played black.. and what black!! The only thing that really saddens me is that Nergal and the gang have disavowed these early works.. oh well.. But now let's move on to the album, the first thing that stands out when listening to "The Dark Forest" is the production, very strange, there are even parts where the guitars sound like synths or something like that!! The song starts as expected, blasting away and very melodic; but then something changes, a clean guitar arpeggio and then there's an atmospheric moment and... a girl singing, soon joined by Nergal in clean vocals in what seems like a pagan hymn... Very, very beautiful!!

Let me preface this by saying I do not care much for symphonic black and tiresome music, so the defenders can rest easy! It kicks off on all cylinders, and given that until now I had only adored Behemoth's death metal oriented CDs, it's really a nice surprise to discover that they were able to play such great black metal! Even the next track, "Spellcraft And Heathendom", is no less, like the previous one the style cannot be classified as simple black, in fact, with moments more death-black oriented, others more properly black, and outbursts reminiscent of Absu, I really don't know how to express myself!

In any case, moving from a track-to-track analysis to a more comprehensive one, it's worth saying that this album was more than a surprise for me, it had been a long time since I've heard a black album sound this way, which mixes so many influences that it even becomes original passing through vocal passages à la Attila from De Mysteriis.. in "Dragons Lair, Cosmic Flames And Four Barbaric Seasons" by Nergal, with arpeggios that couldn't be more Swedish and parts where there's even a faint presence of Enslaved and other bands from the future viking scene.

Again, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, and the likes are not for me, and this is a work that I believe will drive die-hard black fans wild, but it might also attract many newcomers to the aforementioned genre! Highly recommended!