Behemoth - The Satanist (2014)

Country: Poland
Genre: Death/Black Metal

Extreme metal has always been and will always be the black sheep of the music "family". It brings some extreme topics to the surface: it's controversial, irreverent, and discusses life, death, gods, passions and darkness. But mainly, if you're in a extreme metal band, you will hardly make a living out of it. Like some other genres, it's essentially "ars gratia artis", and it's very difficult that you will see some metallers becoming millionaires. Nevertheless, with the boom of new talented young bands around the world, old bands that were already established and had their own musical niches were commercially threatened by these new bands. In the case of Behemoth, it's one of those bands which were able to morph from primitive, raw, ultra-necro black metal to a more stylish blend of death and black metal. Not everyone saw this progression as positive, but what is true is that it allowed the band to continually find its own niche, which was much more important that preserving the musical direction or the initial concept of the band. In this new record, "The Satanist", Behemoth is able to combine two really important elements of extreme music, which enables it to be a commercial success and at the same time, a satisfying musical experience: a convincing, natural and experimental production and the 20+ year experience to write good musical compositions. The final result is beautiful and brutal... It must be clear that the musical focus from this album isn't on brutality, but at the same time it's able to preserve and display considerable intensity. Sophisticated, emotional and lucid arrangements dominate the record, whilst the production puts every riff and passage on another level. I can't just stop praising how great the production is in this album, because you can feel the music in its wholeness and still be able to see through it. You can definitely listen to the music as multiple well-differentiated streams of sound, like threads forming a weave. The mix is impeccable and the recording was done so greatly that no instrument tries to overshadow any other along the record, delivering a crispy and elegant final result. The cover art and the rest of the visual side of the album are of no lesser quality and brilliance. One of the best records of the year. I honestly thought they were about to repeat the same mistake from "Evangelion" in which they tried to imitate the great sounding "The Apostasy" with no success. Luckily for us fans, this was not the case, and we are able to listen to this magnificent follow-up. We need more of this, Behemoth. A dozen of this. 

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