Behemoth

Behemoth surfaced at the start of the 1990s as a prominent force within Poland’s metal community, fusing black and death metal into a biting mixture sharpened further by pointed religious challenges. Their music and public stance proved equally confrontational, resulting in criminal charges from the Polish authorities after the members shredded a bible and displayed the national coat of arms on a T-shirt. The band’s debut full-length, Sventevith, appeared in 1995 and drew positive notices in underground circles. Later efforts such as The Apostasy (2007), I Loved You at Your Darkest (2018), and Opvs Contra Natvram (2022) revealed an expansive approach that folded in folk music, synthesizers, choirs, and orchestras without relinquishing the group’s aggressive extreme-metal core. Throughout their history the lineup fluctuated repeatedly, leaving founding singer/guitarist Nergal as the sole unchanging presence.

Formed in 1991 as a three-piece, Behemoth quickly issued a string of demos, the most widely circulated being 1993’s From the Pagan Vastlands. That same year the Italian independent label Entropy put out their first official recording, And the Forests Dream Eternally. Two years afterward came the initial long-player Sventevith, which earned considerable praise inside the metal underground. With 1996’s Grom the band broadened its palette by introducing acoustic passages, electronics, and female vocalists. The three-track EP Bewitching the Pomerania, released in 1997, marked the recording debut of drummer Inferno (Zbigniew Robert Promiński), who quickly became a central and permanent member.

Pandemonic Incantations, the group’s fifth overall release, surfaced in 1998 amid yet another personnel adjustment. Their final album as a trio—and first for Avantgarde—Satanica arrived in 1999 and helped enlarge their audience, leading to support slots on tours with Deicide and Satyricon. Thelema.6, Behemoth’s first 21st-century album, appeared in 2000 and expanded the lineup to four members with the addition of bassist Novy and guitarist Havoc alongside Nergal and Inferno. The record received worldwide distribution, including a U.S. release the following year, and featured lyric contributions from Krzysztof Azarewicz. The band undertook its most extensive touring schedule to date, sharing bills with Morbid Angel and Nile while also headlining its own runs. In 2002 the live home video/DVD The Art of Rebellion: Live documented performances in Poland, and Zos Kia Cultus followed in 2003, backed by a world tour that included the group’s first U.S. dates.

Demigod arrived in early 2004, introducing bassist Orion (Tomasz Wróblewski) for the first time. The Apostasy, the band’s eighth full-length, reached stores in 2007 and augmented the existing sound with piano and horns. The 2008 EP Ezkaton mixed new studio tracks with live recordings, after which Evangelion appeared in 2009, earning favorable reviews and chart placements in both Europe and America. Activity slowed in 2010 when Nergal was diagnosed with leukemia in the spring and required nearly a year to recover. A 2011 compilation, Abyssus Abyssum Invocat, collected the earlier EPs Conjuration (2004) and Slaves Shall Serve (2006).

The Satanist marked Behemoth’s return in 2014, drawing widespread acclaim and becoming the group’s first album to enter the Top 40 of the American charts. The 2018 concert album and film Messe Noire drew on performances from two 2016 Warsaw shows and the Brutal Assault festival in Czechoslovakia. I Loved You at Your Darkest, the band’s eleventh studio album, blended ferocious extreme metal with more straightforward hard-rock elements and orchestral touches. The EP A Forest, released in May 2020, contained a cover of the Cure song of the same name. Working during the COVID-19 pandemic, Behemoth used the touring hiatus to record Opvs Contra Natvram, which emerged in 2022 and received strong critical praise.