Behemoth
The Satanist

THE REVIEW

Behemoth is a Polish extreme metal group, formed in 1991 as a black metal band. They achieved critical and industry success when, with the 1999 album "Satanica," they shifted towards a very personal blackened death metal that in subsequent albums evolved by increasing the technical rate, production quality, becoming increasingly death and less black.

In 2014, Behemoth released their tenth album, "The Satanist," five years after "Evangelion" (good but perhaps a little predictable).

The most striking feature of the album at first listen is certainly the significant return of purely black metal riffs present in almost all the tracks, which had almost completely disappeared in recent albums. The mix between death and black here is carried out skillfully and never seems to be a cut and paste of their works from the early '00s.

Another advantage, besides the crystal-clear production, a trademark of the band, is the great variety of the tracks; in addition to the classic Behemoth-style outbursts ("Amen", "Furor Divinus"), there are more paced tracks ("Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel", "The Satanist"), pieces with almost atmospheric sections, also created through the introduction of unusual instruments for the band such as synths and brass, and a fantastic instrumental interlude in "In The Absence Ov Light" sung in Polish.

Closing the album, we find the track that perhaps best encapsulates the spirit of the album, "O Father, O Satan, O Sun!", which in seven minutes incorporates practically all the aforementioned sounds without ever seeming redundant and constantly keeping the listener's attention alive.

With "The Satanist," Behemoth perhaps reach the highest point of their career, crafting an original and varied album both in the individual tracks and as a whole, which takes the band to a new level of quality and demonstrates once and for all how this group knows how to evolve without ever losing their essence.

9/10