Behexen / Satanic Warmaster – Split CD (2008)

April 26, 2017

Didn’t really know what to feel about posting this, what with the “accusations” against Satanic Warmaster (who denies flat out being racist, despite some extremely questionable lyrics and releases). It is also a weird situation where a non-NSBM band has done a split with a band that is considered to be a NSBM act. Regardless, I’ve covered some pretty extreme shit here before, and have also written about Death In June and even Burzum, so the show will go on, objectively at least.

I’ll start with the offending article of Satanic Warmaster. It is almost a relief to me that they are the weaker of the two bands on the split, so the temptation to check out any more of their stuff has literally died on its arse. It isn’t entirely bad, but it isn’t particularly stunning or original either; a lot of the nuance gets lost in the cluttered distortion, rather than being granted life by it instead. And the second track…fuck I don’t even know what to say here. It kinda goes off into a dreary, acoustic nod to the type of melody that Lifelover would have executed in the Pulver days, but it just sounds like complete shit.

Behexen, on the other hand, are fucking class. These two tracks are beautiful, and encompass everything I love from black metal; the way that the duality floats between complete sonic nihilism and intense, bombastic, almost symphonic-in-scale moments of grandiose velocity. I can’t remember why this was even on my Spotify to-do-list (it has been there a very long time) but I’m mega glad I bit the bullet and checked it out. A ton of Behexen shit has just replaced it. Amazing.