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Behemoth: I Loved You at Your Darkest (Album review)
Behemoth:
I Loved You at Your Darkest
Release date: 5th of October 2018
Label:
Nuclear Blast
By: Nanna Toft
The overlords of blackened death metal Behemoth
are back with their new anticipated album I
Loved You at Your Darkest, the follow-up to The Satanist from 2014.
As a prelude to the release, Behemoth has had a tight schedule during the
summer, where they have been touring, visiting some of the biggest festivals, and have also been playing
a couple of new songs to tease and give the audience a taste of the new album.
They have been busy filming not only one but three music videos for three new
tracks, and releasing plant-based dog food for our furry companions as well
(one could wonder if they named their song God = Dog on purpose, just so they
could make a different and peculiar type of “merchandise”, but apparently God = Dog is related to English occultist and artist Aleister
Crowley’s philosophy – either way, I hope
the dogs love it!).
When
I first heard the album title I Loved You
at Your Darkest, I thought “oh wow, here we go again…” – and not in a
positive, optimistic way, let me tell you that. Now when I have discovered why they chose that title and where it originates, it makes a bit more
sense to me. It is apparently a verse from the Bible,
and an actual quote from Jesus Christ himself. “For Behemoth to use it as the
basis of our record, it's sacrilege to the extreme”, Nergal has stated.
The album opens with the intro Solve, and almost instantly a very
loudly-singing, slightly annoying children’s choir appears. The choir seems
kind of out of place and could have possibly been integrated in some of the
other songs instead, for instance in the fourth track Ecclesia Diabolica Catholica.
The intro naturally glides into the next
track Wolves ov Siberia, which has been out to the public for
several weeks now. This is one of my favorite tracks. It has a very classic
Behemoth tone to it, which I dig. It’s raw and the riff is catchy.
The song is followed by God = Dog.
The intro of the song has a completely different sound to it, and if only they
would have cut the first 28 seconds away, it would have worked so much better
after the previous song. The shift does just not make any sense.
Yet again we experience another children’s choir part, and this does not work
either in my opinion. Maybe the band should have considered to just completely
exclude the children in this whole matter, and let the adults do the work.
Bartzabel is
apparently the name of spirit of three geomantic figures in geomancy, one of
the forbidden arts in the Renaissance. The song has a slower basis than any of
the other songs on the album, also resembling a church choir in the chorus.
This is not the only song, where we get to hear some chanting elements, also in
Sabbath Mater the chorus has some
revealing sound and feeling to it. Followed by If Crucifixion Was Not Enough, this melody is a lot more up-tempo, and
yet again the shift between the songs is not totally balanced.
Havohej
Pantocrator is a track that reminds me a lot of O Father O
Satan O Sun! from the previous album The
Satanist. This is not the only time where I feel flashbacks and repeated
elements found in that album as well.
The
album is completed and tied together with the outro Coagula, a very theatrical and classic Behemoth melody, which can
be compared to the last part of the song Blow
Your Trumpets Gabriel from The
Satanist. It has an equal trumpet-sound and increasing sensation towards
something greater, like a climax.
In many ways I Loved You at Your Darkest
has got the same sound, feeling and flow as its predecessor The Satanist. Only that this new album stands
stronger in its entirety, but with some ill-timed breaks in between some of the
songs, and sometimes, if you are listening to the album with focus not
specifically on this, the melodies can easily just merge into each other,
because Behemoth’s baseline of sound is very alike in every song. The 12 tracks
which counts 46 minutes and 32 seconds together are 12 great tracks isolated,
but as a sequence they tend to get prolonged and close to tedious at times.
Nergal has previously expressed that the new album would be “One of a kind and it’s something that we’ve never
done before.” Well, of course every album that has been and ever will be made
is unique, but the new Behemoth album does not take me to the seventh heaven
(pun maybe intended), although it is a genuine one. The band stays true to
their roots and has crafted an album with dignity. It is blasphemous, powerful
and pure dark magic – just how we like Behemoth.
Behemoth
is known for their dark, sombre, mysterious, God/creature-related album art,
often with clues and/or inspiration from classic art. The beautiful artwork on
this album has been formed by several Polish artists, and the cover art reflects
the album well. The pictures for the album appearing on booklets and LP
gatefolds are taken by photographer Sylwia Makris with designs by Katarzyna
Konieczka and Tomasz Górnicki, and layout by Bartek Rogalewicz.
I Loved
You at Your Darkest recieves
out of 6
Tracklist:
- Solve
- Wolves ov Siberia
- God = Dog
- Ecclesia Diabolica Catholica
- Bartzabel
- If Crucifixion Was Not Enough...
- Angelvs XIII
- Sabbath Mater
- Havohej Pantocrator
- Rom 5:8
- We Are the Next 1000 Years
- Coagula
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