Behemoth: The Darkness Within
Few bands redefine an entire genre with a single album, let alone take it from its underground roots to global arenas and festival headliners. Few bands, however, are BEHEMOTH. Whilst 2014’s The Satanist and 2018’s I Loved You At Your Darkest afforded them the freedom to stay in their lane and ride a wave of critical acclaim, it was simply not an option for the trio.
“I don’t even know if I could just fucking fabricate another I Loved You At Your Darkest, or The Satanist, or Evangelion,” says vocalist and guitarist Nergal, as he travels to the Czech Republic to usher in BEHEMOTH’s new era at Brutal Assault. “There is a really high value in how BEHEMOTH approaches its work – it’s not just another record; it’s a piece of my fucking liver, it’s a piece of my lung, it’s a piece of me that I tear out from my chest and I just fucking hand it to you.”
If nothing else, their 12th studio album Opvs Contra Natvram, is written in Nergal’s blood. Digging far deeper into the depths of darkness than I Loved You At Your Darkest, the album is a call to arms and all-out attack on the pandemic that’s plagued the past two years, and society’s struggle to comprehend it. “This album is born of negativity, misanthropy, frustration, isolation, no hope; and on a personal level, just dealing with my father that is not doing well to put it mildly. It’s a feeling of loneliness and feeling like I’m being left out, that’s what we fed off when we were doing this record.”
With his father in and out of hospital, and his life on hold, Nergal is ready to set the world to rights. However, everything happens for a reason and the pandemic came with a learning curve. Before he could channel pain and frustration into Opvs Contra Natvram’s blackhole of brutality, he had to accept the time off he’d first been granted.
“I remember when the pandemic started, I was very relieved. When I came off tour, I was so fucking done with everything, a worn-out, drained-ass motherfucker, I was happy that the world had just stopped,” he admits, having found stepping off the BEHEMOTH roller-coaster a revitalising experience. “Finally, I’m gonna have some decent sleep – I did nothing, I read books, jerked off, worked out, and did nothing but that. I was on holiday every three months in some exotic place banging my chick, enjoying the sun, and I loved that.”
As the old saying goes though, what goes up must come down, and Nergal found himself longing for months on the road with BEHEMOTH, because everything else was weighing him down. “I was realising that this is my life, this is what I am, this is who I am, like give it back to me. The world would just turn a coin into something very negative and apocalyptic.”
Like so many experiences, they come bearing epiphanies as gifts. Whilst there was a lesson to be learned, it was a bitter pill to swallow. Something was beginning to change in his heart and soul, but it would feed its way into BEHEMOTH’s future. “I don’t want to say I’m an optimist by nature, but by the experience that I’m gaining whilst moving on, I’m becoming a brutal realist and being realist means hey, look around, there’s nothing good coming out of what’s happening now with the world. Of course, it’s still worth living, it’s still worth creating, it’s still worth releasing music – but it’s lesser and lesser and I say it sadly, because I’d love to give you a more uplifting message.”
Of course, in a world where war is dismantling society and the cost of living crisis is disrupting the cultural balance, uplifting messages aren’t expected. Reckoning with that realisation early in the writing process forced Nergal into a new space of thinking. “I don’t want to be the dark prophet, although dark prophet sounds fucking evil in black metal, I would hate to be one,” he says, admitting he doesn’t want to be the deliverer of bad news, but that it’s necessary for survival. “With places like fucking Taiwan and China, which are basically ticking bombs, let’s just survive that; on top of that survival is the most atavistic thing that you, me and every other living human being on Earth has is this artistry, where fucking mutants like myself are here with my music, and it’s important, and I’m trying to make my voice loud, and I’m trying to make a statement.”
So, as far as statements go, is Nergal suggesting BEHEMOTH are here to send a message straight to our own hearts and souls? Is it time for us to wake up and transform our thought patterns with Opvs Contra Natvram? Or is it impossible for us to act in the here and now?
“That is a rhetorical question, I’m not the one that will answer that; let people answer that, let’s see if they’re gonna buy the record, if they’re gonna continue going to shows, if they’re gonna continue buying albums and spending money on culture if they won’t be able to buy food or pay for gas or energy. It’s this Kali Yuga cycle that we are all in and everyone is fucked.”
With stories about Spartacus, the leader of a slave rebellion, and Sol Invictus, the unconquered god of the sun, throughout its tracks, Opvs Contra Natvram is an album that tells stories of hope wrapped in the darkest hours of mankind. And musically, it untangles the threads of I Loved You At Your Darkest’s anthemic fabric, diverging into a bleaker breed of black metal that’ll swallow you whole. Like all art, it’s a reflection of our reality.
“It’s a very dark fucking cloud lingering around us nowadays, and this album is the fucking juice that I sucked out of those clouds and put into a piece of plastic that you can play now. That’s what it is, take it or leave it,” Nergal exclaims venomously. Creating this album took BEHEMOTH into a black hole, and he’s ready to hand over his burden like a prison sentence.
“I don’t know what to do with it – I fucking shat it out and it’s honest as fuck, and evil as fuck, but I’m just the middleman, it’s the energy of the world that stormed through me, and in the form of Opvs Contra Natvram, it just hit the fan. Everyone who dares to deal with this record, just do it and see if you can fucking handle it because it’s dark as fuck.”
He’s right, listening to Opvs Contra Natvram is like dwelling through the Misty Mountains looking for the One Ring. It’s a cavernous land of hopelessness that’ll suck out your soul like a Dementor’s kiss. But it’s not designed to be picked up and played with, it’s made to be heard in order to fully appreciate the messages underpinning its stories. But Nergal is under no illusions, it’s not easy to keep people engaged with music like this anymore.
“I know the value of the record as a whole is less and less relevant these days, because it’s all about playlists, singles, videos and shit like that. Kids have only 50 seconds capacity for focus according to TikTok statistics, so how they can bare 40 minutes of fucking radical extreme music, I don’t know how man, but if they do, it’s not just a bunch of songs that I threw together.”
“Opvs… is a well thought, well planned entity that has an opening, a middle section, and a proper ending. So, you can pick pieces from it like a buffet, but then it’s gonna make so much sense if you listen from start to finish because it’ll tell you the story in full. BEHEMOTH’s records have always had that intent, like I’ve always been a fan of fucking Painkiller, South Of Heaven, Master Of Puppets – that’s what I always try to replicate, when you listen to those records you know there was a deeper though that someone would really sit and think about opening an album and placing dynamics through the record.”
BEHEMOTH might be taking you on a journey with Opvs Contra Natvram, but it goes beyond that. It’s a call to arms against the shackles our society has slowly imprisoned us in decade by decade, act by act. “It’s a call to arms to fucking stand up for Ukraine, stand up for women’s rights, because if you bury that, you’re gonna bury all the hope for a better tomorrow and a better next 10 years for your loved ones,” he says. “And to me, that is black metal. I know there’s people saying, ‘oh Nergal, stick to music’ – I can’t, because my music brings along a very relevant, very serious message. There are bands that are just singing about fucking whatever, and it’s cool if they want to do it, and it’s cool if there’s people that want to listen, but I’m singing about stuff that is dear to me.”
Nergal and BEHEMOTH have always challenged the capabilities of black metal. They’ve taken it out of basements in Gdansk and into arenas across the world supporting global stars like SLIPKNOT, and headlining major metal festivals like Bloodstock. But most importantly, they remain a conduit for free thought, and we need that now more than ever.
“This message needs to be bought out to the masses, and they need to make up their minds if they even want to deal with that, because as I said, it’s dark energies. I know I’m an entertainer but I’m also a herald, I’m a bringer of news, and that news is not necessarily happy, and sinister and evil music comes along with such messages. And that’s what you get on the new record, maybe darker than ever.”
Opvs Contra Natvram is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.
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