#350 Behemoth - Evangelion

When it comes to metal - or music in general, when I'm feeling adventurous - I like to have a shot at listening to everything. When I notice an oversight in my listening, I tend to attempt to undo it. One band I've recently been aware of as one I've barely listened to before, despite being aware of the band for many years is Behemoth. I think that's probably a solid sign that  it's about time that I sat down and listened to some of their work. When I dip into a band for the first time like this, picking which album to start with tends to be a difficult task; especially with a band with a career as varied as Behemoth's. For this review, I'm going to be looking at Evangelion, for one reason; It is the record which I looked at for some minutes in a shop about six years ago, and then didn't buy; it seems an apt starting point.

The sound which Behemoth employ in their relatively recent work both is, and is not what I expected. I'd always painted the band in my mind as an - if not the - archetypical blackened death metal band. However, this record, and some of the others I sampled around it, much more typify modern, somewhat more pure death-metal. Indeed, the record, pleasingly, feels reminiscent of bands like Vader, also a product of the Polish scene. Nonetheless, an after-taste of black-metal remains even at this stage of the bands move towards the death-metal paradigm, creating an album which has a succulence and grandiose leaning, with enough scathing and atmospheric character to be very digestible, and thus, it comes as no surprise to me that Behemoth often seem to be one of the formative bands in an individuals experience of extreme metal. Evangelion has a lot of intensity, but a controlled, extremely tightly-played intensity which is energetic and destructive, but also very accessible, with a focus which some bands would forsake for sheer heaviness. Evangelion seldom offers a wall of noise, instead invoking a clarity both in terms of song-writing, dexterous playing, and production. At every moment, you can very easily detect what everything in the mix is doing, which is very pleasant to listen to - after all, being well produced and being over-produced are very different things, and Behemoth seem to adopt only the former here, to their credit.

Evangelion has a lot of character as a record; identity and painstakingly careful writing practically ooze out of it, subverting any worries of the band having "big band syndrome" with many bands of Behemoth's stature sinking to create bland, over-produced records which sell in spite of themselves. Behemoth are quite the opposite; well paced, intricate, and above all still attentive; being a name on the lips of almost every metal fan can have a detrimental effect on some, but not Behemoth, it seems. I'm actually a little taken-by-surprise how much I immediately found myself enjoying Behemoth's musical aesthetic - often, if I've known of a band for years and still not listened to them much, there's a reason for it, concious or otherwise. In this instance, however, it must simply be the case that I genuinely made a mistake - perhaps it's because it has taken me a lot longer to enjoy death metal than any of the other genres of extreme metal which has delayed the process. Perhaps I've made the age-old mistake of conflating "well known" with "not good". Regardless, I've developed something of a new found appreciation for the band's sound; not so much "blackened-death-metal" per se - I'm not sure albums like Evangelion can be described quite in those terms, but what I'd describe as death metal which has been rinsed in black-metal, to great effect; death metal teeth with black-metal mouthwash. The music is deeper, more profound, and better written than I expected it to be. An utterly pleasing surprise.

 

I'm already looking forward to listening to more of Behemoth's work - and there is a lot of it to work through, but first impressions are very positive indeed. Naive to metal as I might seem by only discovering them about six years into a metal "career", it nonetheless perhaps allows me to see the band in different light - regardless, the band are more interesting than many might give them credit for. I always tend, it seems, to be someone who goes about listening to metal the "wrong way round", but at the end of it all, a good band is a good band, and Behemoth succeed to impress.

This is 8/10.

Links:
Behemoth Official Site
Behemoth on Facebook
Behemoth on Metal Archives

#349 Immoral Hazard - Convulsion

Now to indulge in another band which I was requested to review some time ago - it was about six months ago that Greek thrash band Immoral Hazard sent me a message asking me to review their début full-length record "Convulsion". Now, finally, I've gotten around to listening to it. As a general rule, if a band request a review and I write one at all, they've already met a minimum-requirement of quality - there are some which I sample and never review at all. The rest, fortunately, get done eventually, or, ideally so. Regardless, time to dive into ten tracks of modern thrash-laced material...

The character of the entire Convulsion album is immediately made clear in the first few tracks - unashamedly modern. There are a few "flavours" of thrash out there at the moment; the retro-thrash style of the thrash revival, the more old-school and underground variety thereof, and the various others which ebb and flow; black-thrash, crossover, and so forth. The style into which Immoral Hazard fit is different from these however; it's the style of thrash which seems to crop up everywhere, spawning naturally when musicians get together and mingle groove-metal, metalcore and thrash together all at once, to create what I can only describe as... "modern metal" - informed by the intermingling of many of metal's more mainstream elements since the mid-nineties. Indeed, the style which Immoral Hazard play is the sort which a lot of bands have been playing since the early 2000s. Nonetheless, the frequency with which bands like this come into existence is not grounds to dismiss their work - and believe me, such work can range from pleasantly reasonable right through to nauseatingly abysmal; the work of terminally local bands. Fortunately, however, Immoral Hazard work well with this style, playing it tastefully and making the songs not only memorable, but giving them enough character to avoid sounding utterly generic - although simultaneously, there is no denying that the sound which the band have is one which has been very thoroughly done previously. Happily, the album does manage to spring the occasional unexpected twist, however.

One of the notable strengths of the album is how "properly done" it feels. For a début - and by an unsigned band - the production is very tight, as is the playing. Everything is relatively well captured, and very competently played by the musicians, including a few riffs and solos which arose from the bubbling cauldron as being especially tasty. The record is a little bit sterile in places with regards to drum sound, but also quite forgiveable; this is not an album in an old-school paradigm, but instead has a thoroughly modern direction musically, in tandem with this production. It's not supposed to sound like the eighties, it is, instead, a good showcase of what the relevant fields of metal have been doing in the mean-time - there are riffs influenced by thrash, but plenty more besides; groove metal seeps into a lot of the record, and there are breakdowns and plentiful riffs inspired by the heavier, slightly more acceptable side of metalcore - the sort which can survive as something of a guilty pleasure, as opposed to the other school of metalcore, that which is best not dwelt on. Convulsion certainly manages to live up to its title, succeeding in being swaggering, energetic and at times explosive. Perhaps not the style of metal which, overall, I'm best suited to in terms of my personal taste, but credit is definitely due the band for their skill and song-writing. 




Granted, I really do try to be honest in my reviews, and for all that it offers, metal of this sort generally isn't the sort of thing which I listen to. Regardless, I'm just one person, one reviewer, and I think it's probably great praise of the band to say that I can think of dozens of people I know who would greatly enjoy a record like this. Indeed, even I; a real asshole when it comes to music taste sometimes, am willing to let my guard down a little and consider this record pleasingly solid.

This is a 6/10.

Links:
Immoral Hazard on Bandcamp
Immoral Hazard on Facebook
Immoral Hazard on Metal Archives

#348 Mayhem - Esoteric Warfare

I can never quite decide where Mayhem fit into the grand scheme of my musical taste. Sometimes, I feel that my listening was saturated by their music all too soon, as I listened to them a lot when I was getting into black-metal. At other times, I look upon them as a band which I legitimately under-appreciate; I can't remember, for instance, the last time I really sat and listened to one of their classics; De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, namely - instead constantly leaning towards other albums by their peers, much in the way that I haven't listened to an album like Master of Puppets in years, despite its massive status. Nonetheless, I can certainly be considered interested when Mayhem announce a new album, and Esoteric Warfare, their first in seven years, is the first time that Mayhem have infiltrated the top-tier of my musical attention in quite a while.

The opening notes of the album set the tone for the rest very concisely. Dissonant, cataclysmic and oppressive - cold, inorganic, seeping unforgiving nihilism like so much radioactive waste. The artwork for the record genuinely paints a picture - pardon the pun - of the album's sound in this respect; it is black-metal infused with cold, metallic ominousness; music not of forests and mountains, but of bunkers, and the secluded work of nuclear armament. The record is immensely foreboding and hostile. Esoteric Warfare represents a progression of this style, which the band seem to have landed upon in its predecessor, Ordo Ad Chao. Despite being quite inspired, that album was a challenging listen owing to its production, which, deliberate or not, rendered the album a "well organised collection of rumbles" - the music demanded an almost exceptional amount of scrutiny and careful listening to glean pleasure from it. Esoteric Warfare retains the atmosphere for which Ordo Ad Chao was most praised, whilst having room to breathe; you can hear what's going on much more easily, which is a godsend. Granted, the murk remains, but much more carefully measured, and induced not by production, but by the musicianship itself, with a wall of harsh, mechanical noise punctuated by screeching, squealing guitar dissonance, like a tumble through the bowls of some vast industrial complex, made all the more harrowing and engaging by the records unapologetic quirky structure, with pauses and bursts of energy which jerk the music around ferociously, placed at times, where you don't expect them at all.

Over the top of this assault, Attila delivers a typically absorbing vocal-performance, roaring, screaming, and delivering his trademark low, growling chants. His vocal approach is one which very much suits the direction in which the record heads - a traditional black-metal vocalist would have felt out of place on this, which is, after all, certainly not a traditional black-metal record - Attila's style compliments it perfectly. Indeed, Esoteric Warfare is a prime example of the fact that Mayhem have never made the same record twice; even with its similarities to Ordo Ad Chao in mind, the record, in its uncoiling, reveals itself to be a very different beast. Granted, this ever changing style leaves Mayhem as a band who possess no sure "string" of classics in the way that many of their peers do - instead leaving each album as an island, but likewise, it's almost impossible to deny that, for better or worse, Mayhem have never created a record which wasn't interesting, and this one is no exception - in fact, it feels among their best formed and most sonically rewarding works in a long time. At the moment, I'm tempted to weigh-it-in as being their best work since De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, although I'm going to wait until the initial elevated mood of listening to a new album subsides before I call in such a judgement for good. Nevertheless, Esoteric Warfare is the first Mayhem album which has deeply impressed me upon discovering it, the only other being the Deathcrush EP - both of which I listened to and was impressed above and beyond the normal mental-hubbub of listening to a record.

 

Of course Mayhem haven't made "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas - Part II" - and I think for the most part hoping for such is naive, and even closed minded. Why should Mayhem create a record in the old style? A style which they helped to pioneer, but which has since, nonetheless, been adopted by a multitude of bands. It's worth remembering that at the time, Mayhem were creating something which very, very few were creating - and in this respect, this record harkens back to that; it is very different from their early work, musically, of course, but it is a return to the creation of music which very few others are creating, and it is within that sphere which the band seem to thrive. It's very clear, at this point, that Mayhem are a band who are creating the music which they want to create, and when records like Esoteric Warfare are delivered to us, we can be very glad of that indeed.

This is an 8.5/10.

Links:
Mayhem Official Site
Mayhem on Facebook
Mayhem on Metal Archives