Behemoth The Shit Ov God Review
“Eat my flesh, drink my blood, I am the shit of god”. So opens the third and titular track on the album “The Shit Ov God” by Blackened Death Metal giants Behemoth. It’s hard to look around inside the world of Satanic metal and find a band that is bigger than Behemoth. Performing with national symphonies, embroiled in lawsuits with governments where they fought persecution and won, every performance is a spectacle and a ritual. Behemoth is something like a Black Metal U2. The same being said, if you’re a fan of this juggernaut, you’re going to love the new album.
Conversely, if you’re critical of the act’s largeness and production, you’re going to hate this. Though the band has reached international fame and infamy, we can be thankful that they’ve not gone the way of many bands from the same scene who have achieved the eyes and ears of the world. Many bands would soften their attack and lean into a sound more palatable to a theatrical audience (Emperor, Opeth, Paradise Lost). Instead, Behemoth continues to write songs that fit well with their largesse but also consistently deals out vicious, monstrous and brutal riffing, drumming and lyrical content that maintains an extreme and unrelenting oppositional defiance.
“The Shadow Elite” is a killer and fulfilling opener that acts as a pace setter for the set to follow. “The Shit Ov God” delivers blackened brutality that channels Celtic Frost’s grimmest moments (“A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh”) with a Satyricon-like command of the language of brutality that kinda makes your butt move. “To Drown The Svn in Wine” is a full stop ripper. “O Venus Come!” makes moves that range from Sabbath meets Danzig, sexy-time music to fully lycanthropic revelry in the form of an unchained Paganini meets shred guitar solo and back into a bed of hellish doom. “Avgvr (The Dread Vvltvre)” acts as a dirgey Death Metal fire-blaster to burn the rest of your already decimated corpse before dropping into a final creepy acoustic guitar refrain. Behemoth designs an album to flow a bit like a ritual but it also flows like vigorous lovemaking or an insanely crushing session of Cross Fit. Perfect buildups, immense crescendos, multiple climaxes and then rest.
~Rev