Derivative and Worthless - "Sventevith" Review (0%)
Behemoth is a band that has suffered many missteps, throughout the years. In fact, the band itself can be seen as one giant misstep that should have never happened, and both black and death metal would be far better off if this poor man's imitation Graveland turned imitation deathcore had never existed.
Formed in 1991, this worthless musical clown show was born out of the desire to join a scene rather than any real sense of creativity or desire to contribute anything artistic to the genre.
While many of the early Norwegian bands were keeping alive the spirit of the first wave of black metal, incarnated by bands such as Bathory and Hellhammer, they also infused their music with something unique and thus added something to black metal with each subsequent release.
Darkthrone brought along the raw intensity of the first wave and turned it up to eleven on Under a Funeral Moon, Burzum gave black metal its characteristic atmospheric majesty on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, Mayhem further outlined the atmospheric component via Euronymous' melodic leads on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, and Phantom's obsessively disturbing and claustrophobic music culminated in the release of the grandiose Withdrawal...
Even in the same country, these different bands managed to create similar yet separate identities. And in countries like Sweden, Finland and even Greece, the different scenes were each able to develop their own takes on the black metal sound, and despite the evident influences from Norway's titans they managed to remain unique and noticeably distinctive.
However, in many other countries, they failed to do anything special. Poland's black metal underground yielded nothing so special until early Graveland decided to break away from the herd and create truly majestic music, as on their debut Carpathian Wolves.
In the case of Behemoth, however, there was even less reason for this band's existence. Nergal and his mates just wanted to mimic their favourite Norwegian bands and to put out music for the sake of appearing "true", as opposed to being possessed by black metal's infernal fire and being utterly compelled to do so, as we so can easily imagine the early Norwegian bands being.
Derivative and Worthless
Sventevith is the debut album from Behemoth, released by Pagan Records in April 1995.
These clowns were not only far below average imitators, but they were rather late to the party as well. By this point, tons of bands were springing up from absolutely everywhere and doing their best to release their own take on Norwegian black metal, regardless of where they were from.
While some did better than others, Behemoth's first full-length could not even match up to the worst releases of some of the most mediocre elements of the seemingly endless waves of Darkthrone, Burzum and Phantom imitators.
The production on Sventevith is just atrocious. Not so much because it is "raw" as in early Darkthrone, but for the tendency of the guitars and vocals to take a back seat to everything else, particularly the worthless synths, a pretty grievous error given the generic nature of the music, and it contributes significantly in moving this album towards the weak and feeble tone of symphonic goth rock.
This is compounded by the fact that the songwriting being so mediocre and unfocused. Rather than just attempting to go for a straightforward black metal approach, Behemoth was already trying to experiment with additional "progressive" - read, superficially uncommon - elements and failed at making them in any way relevant to the rest of the composition.
From the moment "Chant of the Eastern Lands" bursts forth, the already generic guitar riffs are undermined even further by the useless inclusion of acoustics, and the Casio keyboards that soon join in act like the nail in the coffin for Behemoth's brand of emo black metal.
Unlike bands such as early Immortal, Emperor or even Neraines on their debut, Behemoth hardly knew what they were doing and utilized these additional bits as mere "quirky" gimmicks, to the detriment of the already severely mediocre music. The few instrumental tracks only clutter up the Sventevith disaster even further as they are completely forgettable and add nothing except for even more boredom.
They would have been better off opting for a much more simplistic approach. Ambition is not always rewarded, and arrogance doesn't always come with talent. Even without the synth parts and other hipster gimmicks, the songs are rather weak. At times, they meander along with no real direction.
In the end, Behemoth's first record is a huge failure. Sventevith is literally worthless music, as it doesn't even have the historical importance of other failed early black metal acts - such as Borknagar, Warkvlt, Dødheimsgard, Ulver and Enslaved - having been released far too late for that consolation price.
Sventevith is a lower-tier Norse-worship gimmick album, at best, and a poorly executed one at that. This doesn't even match up to lesser Norwegian bands such as Dødheimsgard or Ulver, to be honest. Sventevith is generic and uneventful, lacking everything that makes black metal interesting, and adding inconsequential derivative gimmicks such as keyboard French horns and harpsichords, for hipsters to laud as "progressive".
If you are really curious about this band's black metal past, don't be, as it will most likely put you to sleep. Avoid this and anything else that Behemoth ever went on to record.
Sventevith score: 0/100.
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