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| BEHEMOTH & GLORIA MORTI ‒ Nosturi, Helsinki ‒ March 7, 2010 |
While the Enslain family was visiting the States around Christmastime, Behemoth playing at Philadelphia's Theatre of the Living Arts was one of the few things happening, and therefore a must-go. Having been lying passed out in my tent during the band's performance at Nummirock 2007, and having mostly skipped them at Tuska the following year, I thought it was finally time to witness this Polish black death machine properly. As they very much convinced me on that side of the ocean, we also had to check out their Nosturi gig that followed their appearance at Jalometalli Winterfest in Oulu.  The warm-up act Gloria Morti was well-picked, as their fast and modern extreme metal borrowed elements mostly from death but also black metal, not so much unlike Behemoth's, and they were also clearly honored to share the stage with one of their influences. While I was glad to notice that their out-of-place female keyboard player was no longer in the band, they instead had Lars of Before the Dawn doing the job, and even though he handled it well, the small role of the keys made me wonder if they're needed at all. They introduced several songs from their upcoming album, Anthems of Annihilation, which conceptually seems to concentrate on machines taking over mankind, and they blended in nicely with the rest of the songs that I didn't recognize either. A decent appetizer, which would probably have been more delectable if I had developed a taste for their material by getting more familiar with it beforehand.
After about a 30-minute break, Behemoth kicked off their set with the heavy mid-tempo headbanger "Ov Fire and the Void", which was followed by a good variety of hymns, mainly from Evangelion, Demigod, and Satanica that were all represented by several songs each. As hard as "Demigod" or "Slaves Shall Serve" always hit me and visibly the rest of the audience, the band could try out something more imaginative every once in a while. A nice example of this was the rarely heard "LAM" from Satanica.  Whereas I didn't mind some of their weaker efforts like Thelema.6 and The Apostasy being only represented by "Antichristian Phenomenon" and "At the Left Hand ov God" respectively, there surely would have been more interesting songs to perform even from those albums. I was also confused by the intro for "Horns ov Baphomet" being followed by "As Above So Below", which, despite its memorability and good headbanging-potential in the midst of faster songs, must be one of Behemoth's most boring pieces, as it never really gets anywhere nor does anything for me.
Despite having grown to be big enough to play a festival like Sonisphere, and presenting a polished [pun intended] image on stage and in their promo photos, Behemoth haven't regressed to being the Dimmu Borgir of death metal, but rather are still relevant with their quality material and seriously deep occult concepts. While the songs are also performed convincingly with intense fury and headbanging rage, the casual attitude of Nergal's speeches creates a confusing contrast. Not that he should constantly pretend to be "Blackest ov the Black", but I'd expect him to have something a little more profound to say than just stale phrases like "are you having fun my friends" and "we came to bring Satan to Finland". Before you criticism-challenged fanboys go feeding me to the lions as a tight-ass, I could add that I actually liked Nergal introducing a song from Demigod by saying "this is "Conquer All", baby!"  As the stage was often darkened between the songs during interludes and samples, it wasn't so easy to see from further back, where it was less crowded, what was happening up there, but it seemed as though the members often left the stage only to make another "grand entrance" a couple seconds later. However, the last clear encore consisted of "Chant for Eschaton 2000", which offered refreshing variation with its rocking mid-tempo catchiness, and the closing track of Evangelion, "Lucifer". As the set was similar to the one we saw in America, this climax didn't come as a surprise, but was no less impressive. Seriously, this long and slow, quite untypical Behemoth track is definitely one of their finest moments with its slithering, malevolent riffs and possessed atmosphere, and while the American audience might have been disappointed for not getting one last chance to run amok to the pit, at least this Finn received it with morbid ecstacy. Also mentionable was the big weird mask that Nergal wore just for this song, which was somewhere between intimidating and amusing in its angular and over-the-top appearance.
Despite it being Sunday, the venue was crowded, and especially Behemoth's younger followers seemed to have arrived in great numbers. Therefore, I was surely not the only one to wonder where they had left all their merchandise, as it seemed there was only a few T-shirts that had confusingly been placed at the coat-check. While Behemoth gave us a quality show as the professionals they are, I could whine about the song picks for eternity, but with a discography as wide as theirs, it's obviously not possible to compile a set that fully satisfies everyone. However, something from their blacker past would have been in order, especially as their Demonica compilation from some years ago must have made their early material more known to the new fans as well. "Pure Evil and Hate", anyone? ~ Ossi Turpeinen |
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Full photo galleries from this gig: Behemoth & Gloria Morti
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