Behemoth – The Satanist

February 3, 2014 • Nuclear Blast

Behemoth is (yet another) one of those metal bands that I listened to a ton of around 2005–2007, but really fell out of my rotation after that in favor of some more appealing and niche death metal (it didn't help that I found their 2009 album Evangelion really boring and derivative). Even still, I kept interest in the band through the stories about Nergal's illness and recovery and figured I might as well give The Satanist a shot. And it was well worth it.

Although this album is still very much in line with their older stuff, it's a huge step forward in terms of sound and performance and shows the band finally stepping up out of their rut a little bit. Their particular brand of blackened death metal is as solid as ever, but it takes a couple interesting turns. Most notable is a bit of a slower, toned-down atmospheric sound on a few tracks (like "Messe Noire" and "The Satanist") that reminds me a lot of bands like Gojira (especially "The Satanist"). It fits in well with the rest of the album and adds a nice new contrasting aesthetic dimension to the music. Also worth a mention is the saxophone solo (of all things!) during the bridge near the beginning of "In the Absence ov Light"—completely out of left field, but also totally great to hear. There's a lot of neat little moments like that scattered around.

And I can't complain about their more traditional death metal writing, either; there's loads of great catchy riffs and blasts to keep things intense. As usual, there's a bit of simplistic repetition in a few songs like the basic riffing in "Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer" which is a bit less appealing to my tastes, but it's still not bad.

I know a lot of people are opposed to the glossy mix and over-production of their albums from the last ten-plus years, and that hasn't gone away; The Satanist is definitely far too slick that anything with that title ought to be. Personally, I never mind that sort of thing. In this case, it might help a bit since there's a lot of extra instrumentation going on—choirs, organ, strings, brass, etc. Also, the bass is mixed really prominently and has a great growly sound that cuts through really well, even on earbuds.

I still have a soft spot for Demigod (as that was the first of theirs I heard) but this one is probably going to take the number two spot in their discography for me. I'm not going to say The Satanist (or Demigod, for that matter) is some kind of death metal masterpiece that will be remembered as a classic for years to come, because it won't (they're too mainstream for that by now, ironically). It is, however, a reasonably good album that Behemoth should be proud to have to their name.