A Forest

I won't say anything revealing when I’ll say that Behemoth is a controversial band. For non-metalheads and for metalheads too. Some people love them to death and some people hate them. Also, the opinions on their music from actually every era are very divided. In the beginning I need to admit that I like their last full-lengths. I liked offensiveness of The Satanist and I Loved You at Your Darkest and even the strong rock elements of the latter. But I didn’t think that after I Loved You at Your Darkest, the band will decide to release a… filler. An album that sounds unfinished and that consists only of an awful cover, live version of the same cover that sounds even worse and the rejected songs from the I Loved You at Your Darkest recording session.

The EP starts with the title track, which is a cover of The Cure’s A Forest. First of all, why they decided to name their EP after a cover? Especially when it’s not a cover album and the second half of it consists of their own material. But anyway, let’s focus on the music. From the very first note I noticed that as in the original version the bass is amazing and is a main motive of the song, here it’s… disturbing. But the instruments are at least listenable. The vocals aren’t at all. It sounds like Nergal and Niklas tried to sound dark and mysterious and they failed. And it sounds like they even know that they are failing, but still they are trying all the time with the same effect always. All of these whispers and squeaks sound so pointless and don’t fit the music at all. It also sounds like the vocalists thought “alright people, we don’t have to try hard, you know how the song goes anyway, so sing it for yourself”.

And after this studio version ended, I thought that I won’t hear anything worse here. And then the live version of the exact same song comes. Why the hell did they decide to put a live version of A Forest right after the studio version of it?! I really don’t like listening to the same song 2 times in a row. Putting it as the last song of the EP would be a way better idea. But as in the studio version Nergal and Niklas were only trying to sing (and failing), here they are almost not focusing on singing at all, but they are focusing on warming the crowd. Really, we have more of “hey, hey, hey for the fucking demon!”, “Uno, dos, tres, cuatro” than of the actual singing, of the actual performing the song. What makes it even funnier, we don’t hear the crowd very well. Oh, and let’s don’t forget about “Come on you pussies, fuck you!”. I am not against being vulgar on stage, but first - this doesn’t fit The Cure’s song at all and second - the way Niklas does it is just pathetic.

The second half of the EP are the rejected songs from the I Loved You at Your Darkest recording sessions. And I think that they both are… okay. They aren’t anything special and it’s not hard to say why they didn’t make it to the album, but they are pretty pleasant to listen to - but nothing more. I can’t say that they save this EP, cause the main song of it is a disaster and they are just okay. Both have some rock elements just as the whole I Loved You at Your Darkest album and some catchy melodies. But it’s not anything new and anything great, only an interesting thing for the fans to get to know the songs that didn’t make it to the last full-length. And with this thought I am coming to one big conclusion.

I would be okay with the EP if it was just a “small” addition to the discography, a compilation of rejected songs with some cover recorded for fun. I wouldn’t even listen to it then since I am not a big Behemoth fan (I just like some of their music). But it’s not a “small” addition to the discography. It’s a heavily advertised album that was released on 3 variants of vinyl, CD and a cassette. Also, the music video to the title track was recorded and there are shirt designs created connected to it. So, I was expecting an actual EP with lots of effort put in it. And what I got is a filler in the discography probably released to earn some money during the pandemic and advertised with phrases saying that it’s “a gift for fans during this hard time” and that it’s “exactly what we need at the moment”. No. What we need is good music that we would buy for ourselves (supporting the artists) with pleasure and not something I regret listening to many times digitally.

A Forest is a pointless addition to Behemoth’s discography that sounds unfinished and underdeveloped. It consists of: an awful The Cure’s cover where the bass is disturbing and the vocals are unlistenable and doesn’t fit the music at all, a live version of this cover where the vocalists are focusing on warming the crowd and screaming pathetic vulgar phrases way more than on singing and 2 rejected songs from Behemoth’s last full-length’s recording sessions that are average, but pleasant to listen to. But for sure they don’t help the EP as a whole very much.

Originally written for Tony Blackthrasher on Instagram and Facebook and The Metal Observer.