Album Review: Behemoth – I, Scvlptor

Album Review: Behemoth – I, Scvlptor

Reviewed by Dan Barnes

Not so much a new studio album as a revisitation of some of themes and ideas that didn’t make the grade originally but have been dusted off and reappraised. Behemoth’s latest collection, I Scvlptor, is more of a compilation than a new album, coming less then eighteen months after the release of last year’s The Shit ov God.

Intended to act as something of a bridge between the band’s black metal roots and their more-recent death-centric style, I, Scvlptor is comprised of eight tracks, some new, some re-recorded, some not-heard-before hidden gems, which makes this album as more than a curio in Behemoth’s back-catalogue.

The title-track, and first single, begins with eerie and creepy darkness, orchestral bleakness and a haunting ambience occupy the early parts of the tune; those classical motifs run through the whole composition, giving a bombastic and uncomfortable vibe to the second half, taking classic Behemoth blasphemies and giving them a modern twist. Thematically, it is a song about the endless process of self-recreation, which is the over-arching consideration of the record.

The previously unheard Lord ov the Horizons is laced with a morose acoustic riff, which never once waivers no matter which direction the track takes. Doomy at times, yet with a choral section that suggests Nergal had recorded the combined choirs of the Satanic Realm as backing vocals. Also included here is the studio rough mix of this song which, for me, was preferable to the finalised version for the very fact of it being unrefined.

The third previously unreleased track on I, Scvlptor is Begotten, a fast-paced classic black metal-era Behemoth tune that utilises the second wave’s preoccupation with the lo-fi and creates and explosive and uncompromising four-minutes. It is a fine reminder that the Poles started life as a Church—bothering Black Metal act, only introducing the death metal elements on 1997’s Bewitching the Pomerania EP.

Early tracks Rise of the Black Storm of Evil, from the 1993 demo, The Return of the Northern Moon, and In Thy Pandemaeternum, found on the Pandemonic Incantations third full-length in 1998, have been re-recorded with Behemoth’s modern aesthetic without losing the original spirit or intention of the songs.

And, although without any need to do so, Behemoth have gone back to source and have included an acknowledgement of the debt owed to two of the original founders of the whole damn scene. Venom’s In League With Satan features a contribution from Dimmu Borgir main man, Shagrath, to reinterpret the track life a full-bloodied rite to the dark lord himself. Big and bombastic, it oozes filth and sin, the chanting chorus is as though Nergal has found more work for that Demonic choir.

A live version of Bathory’s The Return of Darkness and Evil is included and features Sakis Tolis of Rotting Christ in what becomes a rollicking run-through of one of the genre’s seminal tunes. The live energy and the fleshing out of the sound give this cover a presence that cannot be ignored.

Looking at the progression of Behemoth from their second wave-adjacent formative years to the blackened-death metal monster – the Biblical behemoth, if you will – we know today. I, Scvlptor is a peak behind that curtain to see if the newer fans want to tread the infernal path the band themselves took in the early nineties. I’d recommend you do – they have such pleasures to show you!

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