Search - Beherit :: Engram

The resurrection of black metal after post-1994 slump

death metal and black metal | Austin, TX | 02/15/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Beherit returned to reclaim and then reinvent black metal after a long slump. For those who are just getting into black metal, it's important to know that the genre flowered from 1990-1994, then stagnated as tons of new people came in and started regressing toward the mean. By 2000, most black metal sounded like punk rock with blasphemy added.



Coming out of retirement, one of the originators of the style and one of the bands who explored dark ambient as a means of finding similar expressions, Beherit, returned with a powerful album. Deliberately written in a style like the early Bathory releases, this album attempts to re-state classic black metal themes in a way that separates content and form from "sound." You can dress up any old music in a "sound," like by adding really distorted guitars and fast drums. But it takes a lot more to make it belong to the genre in spirit and outlook.



"Engram" does this really effectively. Seven simple songs with fast riffs lead up to an epic doomy track, giving this album the feel of a concept. Deepending that sense is that allusion to past themes of Beherit and black metal in general, as if re-tracing the evolution of the genre, and then showing us a new way with that final track. Even more, the CD begins with a very basic riff over which a keyboard solo creates atmosphere not unlike Dead Can Dance "In the Land of the Blind the One-Eyed Are Kings."



Even further, the album goes out of its way to embrace old-school black metal themes and expand on them with nuance and depth, but not "quirk" as the trendy bands do. This album is enjoyable for repeated listens and gets more infectious with time. It renovates the black metal style by showing us there's plenty of potential left, and by tackling the hardest case, which is the basic and violent extremist fringe of this movement, it again shows us the black metal potential for finding beauty in darkness.



I'd recommend this album to anyone who likes old school underground metal, or has a really open mind and likes good music that hides its complexity in song structure, not tricked-out riffs. After a dearth of interesting albums, "Engram" is like a breath of fresh air that hides in an old favorite. While most people have not yet seen it, this is the first shot in a revolution badly needed in this promising art form.



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