BEHERIT/ENGRAM (Spinefarm)
It's been 14 long years since Finlands BEHERIT last spewed forth their filthy brand of caustic blasphemous
black metal.14 years of festering hatred for him upstairs and mankind in general.14 years of barely contained
rage as main man Nuclear Holocausto sits alone in a festering pit in some outpost in Finland planing his
return.Satan must be appeased and this will be their defining moment.A glorious return that will set a bench
mark for all that is satanic black metal in all it's infernal majesty.Surely it shall be so?
Well,actually no.Where once this band lead from their punishing and somewhat ramshackle early works to
the influential and down right experimental 'draw down the moon' they now seem quite happy to follow tried
and tested stock BM moves that never really breaks any new ground or takes very few risks at all.Don't get
me wrong this isn't a bad record by any stretch but I'm going to put the hellcat amongst the pigeons here by
pointing out that a lot of Angram appears to be cribbed from bands from Norway! (a bit of Mayhem here,a little satyricon there) which I find most strange coming from a band who actually used to put "no orders from Norway"
on their sleeves was their dislike for their Norwegian neighbors though I do believe this particular cold war has long since been settled.
Things start off quite promisingly with the thundering Axiom Heroine with some great use of shimmering
electronics (one of the more original traits of the album) and Pagan Moon (lazy title) would stand tall on any
classic BM release but for every good track there is utter nonsense like the godawful Suck My Blood which
sounds like a 15 year old Cradle Of Filth fans Idea of what true black metal is! it's that embarrassing.
Engram is not the sound of a band losing the plot completely and if this were a debut from a new band
then this would be a decent release but from Beherit I can only think of one word and that word would be 'safe'.
www.myspace.com/beheritfanpage
FIN
Subject: BEHERIT/ENGRAM (Spinefarm) 
Mon May 18, 2009 3:55 am
