Beherit

Black Metal - Finland

Beherit was formed in 1989 by three young musicians from Rovaniemi, Lapland; vocalist and guitarist Nuclear Holocausto Vengeance, bassist Daemon Fornication and drummer Sodomatic Slaughter. The band released three demos the following year: “Seventh Blasphemy”, “Morbid Rehearsals” and “Demonomancy”, and also gathered reputation for their live shows, which included pig heads and goats on stage.

Beherit’s first full-length, “The Oath of Black Blood”, includes material recorded from June to September 1990. Initially released in 1991, the album is traditional, fast and brutal old school black metal, heavily influenced by death metal, thrash metal and grindcore. However, it is not a separately recorded studio album. The band got some funding for recording an album from their record label at the time, Turbo Music, but supposedly spent the money on alcohol. The label then released their demo “Demonomancy” demo, backed by the “Dawn of Satan’s Millennium” 7″ EP as a compilation, without the band’s permission, and named it “The Oath of Black Blood”, which was originally supposed to be the name of the new album.

2005. Behold the second coming of Beherit’s “The Oath of Black Blood” – this time around as an official, band-sanctioned release. It is a none too gentle breeze of rancid corpse-breath from the beginning of the second wave of black metal, as defined by Beherit, the Canadian Blasphemy and a whole bunch South-American maniacs. Tons of spikes, bullet belts, ugly facepaint and a lot of unhealthy interests were the hallmarks of the genre.

Beherit hailed from the Arctic Circle, and led by the main man Holocausto they soon grew from the humble beginnings into a leading force of the early nineties Black Metal scene. Eccentric, outrageous and certainly ahead of their time, they finally mutated into something completely else, but at the time “The Oath of Black Blood” was recorded Beherit were still cheerfully churning out malignant filth which skipped introductions and went straight for your soul. Evil, pure and with no additives, delivered as a chaotic blast of chainsaw guitars, vocals sounding like the hiss of a thousand snakes and drums pounding relentlessly to the spectacle of the listener being torn apart by the black wind rushing out of the speakers.

The whole album was re-mastered for this release, although old-school purists may rest assured there is only so much you can do about a recording that was considered noisy and unhinged back at the time it was originally released unto the unsuspecting underground tape-trading circuit. Of course “The Oath of the Black Blood”‘s technical merits – or lack of them – are nothing to do with today’s standards, that is beside the point: this blast from the past should serve as a good reminder that there was a time when extreme metal was still delivered with passion bordering on insane, with little or no concern for the outside world.

Essential evil from the grim past. Discover the rotten roots of modern Black Metal.