Blessed Be the Darkness

As the minimal and blasphemous cover art already tells you right from the start this magnificent opus is going to be something really dark and crushing. After their second and very different(compared to this and other Behexen material after it) demo "Eternal Realm"(wich is also definetly worth checking out) the rotten worm of Behexen strarted to grow into a far more morbid, disgusting and darker form. The mass of synths that existed on Eternal Realm demo are almost gone. Synths don't appear very often, but they still does exist. When they appear they are just on the background adding more dark and mystical aura to it. I'm now going to review this masterpiece song by song.

The first song "Saatanan Varjon Synkkyydessä" starts off slow and morbid having almost a kind of a ritualistic feel in it. Then the song moves into a very crushing and heavy direction leaded by Torogs sick and very high pitched screams. This part REALLY destroys and makes your ears bleed. The rest song blasts all the way trough with few slow downs and fucking great riffs. In the end some mysterious sounding keyboards also appear on the wall of brutal guitars. Then the song fades a way by only keyboards repeating that same mysterious hymn in the background leaving very dark and somewhat "ancient" feeling floating in the air. This onslaught is just almost dark perfection and it's one of the best tracks Behexen have ever done.

Moving to next track called ”The Flames of the Blasphemer”. The song begins with morbid scream by Torog. Soon after drums and the guitars aslo join the blasphemy. This song has good fast and twisted guitar riffs and few little more gloomy parts with haunting atmosphere and some spoken vocals. The song is overall very crushing, but still not so amazing as the first and the last one. Also the laugh’s at the end are pretty annoying.

And last but definetly not the least we have the title track ”Blessed Be The Darkness”. The song begins very odd. I hear guitar palying very good riff silent in the background. It becomes louder and luoder and then suddenly the magnificent main riff comes and plays it’s dark harmony. It’s hard to describe, but the riff has very dark feeling into it and this is in my opinion the best part of the whole demo. In the middle of the song there comes also some more emotional riffs wich brings good fluctuation and more emotional tuoch to the whole track as also to the whole demo. This track also like the first one has so dark and crushing feeling in it, that I really can’t say anything negative about it. It's also the most "melodic" track.

This is one of the best demos I have ever heard. Now you are probably wondering why give it ”only” 91 point’s. Well I don’t follow this stupid hype where everyone gives full point’s to almost every album they think is good. The reason’s that I don’t give this demo the perfect rate is that there are just tree songs in this entire demo. Also the second track isn’t as good as it could have been. Overall this is still some awsome experience and along with split with Horna the best Behexen has to offer. These all tracks are also on the first full-length ”Rituale Satanum”, but in my opinion these versions are way more better than those one’s. So, if you are looking some very dark and crushing material with real passion and dedication, get this anyway you can. This isn’t maybe the most original recording, but who gives a flying fuck if the material is as good as this.