Nightside Emanations

After a revolutionary for the band My Soul For His Glory Behexen has continued to move in the mystical and occult direction. Nightside Emanations also brought some metamorphoses. Maybe it was inevitable, as the longtime guitarist Gargantum left the band and Behexen has accepted the cult personality - Shatraug, the leader of Horna, Sargeist and many other formations. Anyway, every Behexen album was bringing something new to a bigger or to a lesser extent. Nightside Emanations wasn't the exception, it developed the sound of My Soul For His Glory.

The album's title is descriptive, as the music is indeed dark and generally is associated with the night, ominous rituals somewhere in the chambers and other similar stuff. The release even starts with the obscure ambient intro, which establishes the ritualistic atmosphere. However, the following couple of tracks brings something special in the context of the band's sound. "Wrathful Dragon Hau-Hra" and "Death's Black Light" are fast and energetic, they are noticeably influenced by death metal. By the way, "Death's Black Light" contains a quite Horna-like tremolo riff, Shatraug provided his own influence as well. "Temple of the Silent Curses" has a no less Horna-like kind of tremolo riff.

Then there comes "Circle Me...", probably the best composition of the album. It settles the prompting ritualistic atmosphere. This track is slow and hypnotic, while in its second half the level of the tragedy is enhanced, Torog's vocals become expressive and possessed while being clean. Since that composition the music of Nightside Emanations is settled in the mystical, occult and ceremonial niche for good. However, death metal influence still won't disappear anywhere. The other highlight of the album is "Awaken Tiamat". The track is dynamic, vigorous and march-like. Its chorus even contains an epic vibe.

The already mentioned "Temple of the Silent Curses" has quite an epic chorus too. Furthermore, it is a one of the most ceremonial compositions of the album, as the chorus is presented by the clean chanting. And what a great guitar solo is put in the conclusion of that track, it sounds arcane. The final chapter of the work itself is also a standout moment - "Kiss of Our Dark Mother" appears to be a truly dismal composition, again with possessed ritualistic clean vocals of Torog. That's how Nightside Emanations looks like. It's a pretty diverse album with a spellbinding dark atmosphere.

In terms of extreme music, the members of Behexen know how to raise a devastating storm. They have already demonstrated their capability to perform different kinds of stormy black metal. The ultra-brutal approach of "By the Blessing of Satan" was followed by the very raw "From the Devil´s Chalice", while the debut and "My Soul for His Glory" showed a relatively normal presentation of the darkest music genre. The stylish packaging of "Nightside Emanations" opens the next chapter in the history of Behexen. It indicates a more sophisticated approach. This does not mean that the band tries to score with less powerful tunes. The guys still possess the loveliness of a horde of rabid dogs. Fiery and fast-paced eruptions like "Death´s Black Light" do not show any signs of weakness. Additionally, the more atmospheric tracks also leave an enormous effect. The reason for this is simple. Impenetrable blackness characterises the sonic experience. The dense guitar sound delivers a very solid framework while the deep and powerful vocals make clear that the lead singer has internalised the quintessence of the genre. Evidently disgusted by the human race, he spits out the words imperiously.

"Nightside Emanations" appears as a very good and well-balanced mixture of atmosphere and aggression. All these suicidal black metal whiners should lend an ear to the here presented album in order to understand the true philosophy of this music. Misanthropy and violence are not mutually exclusive. The opposite is the case. They determine and complement each other. And both elements are usually necessary in order to create a really outstanding black metal output. Speaking of the indispensable ingredients, the attacking riffs have the power to bring a dead man back to life. But the slightly more melodic guitar lines are no less exciting. The guitar work as a whole spreads the stench of decay and rottenness. While falling deeper and deeper into the seemingly fathomless depth, you will realize that you are listening to a black metal masterpiece. Despite its proximity to the musical cruelty of the black classics, it offers a new perspective to the slightly rusted genre. Therefore, Behexen enrich the scene without gazing at the rear-view mirror. On the one hand, the music does not lack of catchiness and musicality. On the other hand, the guys do not disobey the principles of the genre. Songs like "Awaken Tiamat" illustrate this successful balancing act of the Finnish extremists who possess an amazing songwriting talent.

Due to the fact that almost each and every track reaches the top level, it does not make sense to speculate about the highlights of "Nightside Emanations". More important is that the album also captivates with a perfect flow. Complexity and directness are broadly balanced and the solo parts fit harmoniously into the overall concept. Remarkable is that Behexen keep up the tension until the end of the album. "Kiss of Our Dark Mother", the final track, shines with unholy invocations and a suspenseful construction as well. After starting with emotional tones, the intensity of the song grows rapidly. It leaves you disturbed and fascinated at the same time. However, the storm is over. You have survived. But I guess that you want to take this hellish trip again and again.

Behexen have come a long way, musically speaking, in their journey as a black metal band. These satanic, overlooked black metal musicians (and magicians!) began with an epic, Satyricon-worship demo, then showcased some of the rawest, most vicious black metal that can be found within the Finnish BM scene, then finally their later music from 2008 and onward seems to have calmed down a bit but after listening to this album, it's clearly that they are not that softened at all. Nightside Emanations shows something very different from Behexen. It's an album not so harsh and raw, but still very dark musically.

The band's musical approach on this album leans much more towards an old-school Beherit-like sound (although the production quality is nowhere near as raw as early Beherit) mixed with some black metal aspects very reminiscent of Marduk and Watain. These songs sound miles away from the raw and savage black metal that they initially began with. Nightside Emanations' production quality is much cleaner, though it doesn't sound over-polished or digitally-produced. It does give a flawless sound quality of being not too lo-fi yet it doesn't sound like one of the latest Dark Funeral albums either. It's right in the middle when it comes to production quality. All of the instruments can be heard in the mix. Speaking of the instruments, the guitar tone is quite different, with much deeper distortion. No more chainsaw-sounding guitars! After listening to many songs from Behexen's back catalogue, it's obvious that these are not the same guitarists that played on any of the older albums or EPs. The riffs do not involve tremolo picking combined with fast, simplistic rhythm sections like any of the older songs. Instead of lots of tremolo picking we hear riffs reminiscent of a lot of first-wave black metal bands combined with power chords that are arpeggiated to bring forth that dark, sinister atmosphere within the music. There's a lot of variation and diversity within these songs. Songs like Death's Black Light, Luciferian Will, and Wrathful Dragon Hau-Hra are fast and contain crushing heaviness whereas songs like Awaken Tiamat or Circle Me are much more melodic. Clearly the guitarists, Shatraug and Wraath, know how to make the songwriting diverse.

Regarding Hoath Torog's vocals, they may come as a surprise to fans who've only heard his screams on the first two albums of Behexen. His vocals are completely unpredictable throughout the album, switching between his professional, high-pitched screeches from the old days to deep-voiced growls to loud shouts. At times it seems like the deep voice of Mikko Aspa (of Clandestine Blaze and Deathspell Omega) might be an influence on Hoath's vocals. He initially began low, death metal-like growls on My Soul for His Glory, yet here he seems to have perfected this vocal style.

Nightside Emanations manifests Behexen striving to perfect the musical turning point they had on My Soul for His Glory. This turning point was where Behexen began to move away from their primitive days of raw black metal. This album concentrates more on the atmosphere behind the songs, which at times develops into something really sinister, such as the middle section on Kiss of Our Dark Mother. Songs like Wrathful Dragon Hau-Hra have fast, very crushing riffs, yet it's as if the darkness that these musicians tried to formulate around this album shaped these riffs instead of extremely crushing riffs shaping a dark atmosphere. The older material made the vehemence and aggression more obvious than the atmosphere conveyed. Behexen have their own sound here; something that doesn't sound like a rip-off of 3 other black metal bands. It's not an album that sounds too uninspired either, although there are a couple filler tracks in the last half of the album. The riffs sound fluent and flow together, as if written very quickly in a very spontaneous state of mind. Overall, Nightside Emanations is a black metal album worth checking out.