Baest: Death or Glory
Here’s a take that shouldn’t be as hot as some in the metal community will have you think – bands don’t have to pander to their fanbases when it comes to their creative output. The final decision on which direction an outfit takes is down to themselves, even if they are aware it could cause backlash from a minority. For Danish death metallers BAEST, things seem to be going well, though.
“We’ve had about five to ten rude comments on YouTube and maybe one or two on social media, but compared to how different the sound is, I don’t think that’s too bad!” Laughs guitarist Svend Karlsson – and he’s not wrong with how much of a departure from BAEST’s previous effort, Necro Sapiens, the Scandinavians have gone.
Fourth album Colossal has seen BAEST take their thunderous death metal and blend it with the twin-lead work of the 1980’s, and it doesn’t take long for that to become apparent, with opening track Stormbringer beginning with four cymbal hits and a lead guitar line that wouldn’t sound out of place on a JUDAS PRIEST record. The band recently said they had to figure out they were comfortable with being ‘a heavy metal band’ as opposed to anything more specific, but Svend doesn’t believe they were ever purposefully inauthentic in the process.
“Things have been changing a little bit over the years, but we’ve never felt like we shouldn’t be writing death metal,” he explains. “However, during the writing of Necro Sapiens and the Justita EP (released 2022), Lasse (Revsbech, the band’s other guitarist) started bringing in some 1980’s-inspired material, we started showing each other some childhood riffs we’d had lying around and it developed into something that everyone was enjoying so much, we had to make it a part of the sound.”
With Necro Sapiens and 2019’s Venenum being conceptual albums, Colossal represents the first chance BAEST have really had to tap into an evolution of their sound, but Svend undersells the result when he says “I think we got away with it”. Truth is, Colossal is arguably the best album BAEST have done thus far; there’s still plenty of what made their name – Imp of the Perverse is overflowing with classic death metal – but In Loathe and Love’s melodic touches bring about thoughts of AMON AMARTH and there’s even a couple of influences that caught the band off guard.
“Depraved World, the last track, is really WHITESNAKE for us,” reveals Svend, “and the title track – I don’t know where in the song – but Sebastien [Abildsten, drums] found out he could do the drum fill from In The Air Tonight, so that’s in there too! When we play it live, we all wait to see if anyone in the audience picks up on it, we’re all looking at their faces!”
Of course, despite the overwhelmingly positive reaction, you can never be sure how a fanbase is going to react at first; for BAEST, they had a strong, early indicator. “When we started playing Misfortunate Son live, the reactions were really good, we were having a huge amount of fun too and we figured this should be the direction we go in,” Svend explains. “However, we thought we were done with the album and then our label (Century Media) reached out and said ‘can you do some more with this new kind of style?’ and while we were disappointed at first because of the hard work we’d put in, we quickly realised a couple of days later they were right.”
Crucially, this expansion in BAEST’s repertoire has opened themselves up to explore other styles and blend them into their own, but Svend is adamant that death metal is going to be at the heart of it regardless. “I was recently listening to (BOLT THROWER record) Those Once Loyal, which is a huge album for everyone in the band, and I still want to play those kinds of riffs – we’re still writing those sorts of riffs as well in that DYING FETUS style. You know, if you listen to Dawn of the Angry, you’re going to want to play MORBID ANGEL riffs, right? And so we’re doing that while figuring out how to fit in our DOKKEN, WINGER and JOURNEY, [laughs]!”
Colossal will be seen as a watershed album for BAEST in the not-too-distant future. Right now, it’s a statement that you can step out into the unknown, take a few risks and see them all pull off, but give it a few years and it will be looked on as the record that gave this hungry, bludgeoning death metal band the opening they needed to become a global force in extreme music. And that In The Air Tonight fill in the song Colossal? It’s about a minute into the song. You’re welcome.
Colossal is out now via Century Media Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS125 here:
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