I Loved You at Your Darkest

This is the album I was hoping Behemoth would never make, and especially following up their two strongest releases, “ILYAYD” was a total shock. From the song titles, to the aesthetics of the album, to the compositions themselves, this is “Behemoth-by-the-numbers,” a rehashing of many of their former albums in a stilted, uncomfortable package. It is a decadent “resting-on-the-laurels” in the worst possible way, a lazy release by some of the best musicians in the genre at present. And it is a true disappointment that is not simply a failure to live up to “The Satanist” but the album is – and I hate to say this – almost a sell-out, an attempt to bring the Behemoth sound down to a formula. This is to say nothing of the awful means of promoting this release, which sees poet-laureate of the black/death masters Nergal degraded to a dog food salesman, an absolute travesty that one can only hope will be lived down in the same way Dio lived down his Budweiser commercial. The exact reasons for this album’s disappointment will take some time to explain.

First, one should not discount the context in which “ILYAYD” was released – immediately following “The Satanist,” which has widely (and rightly) been hailed as the highpoint of Behemoth’s musical output, leaping to another mountain’s peak would undoubtedly be a difficult feat in the first place. And while the band has not exactly changed that much – the line-up is exactly the same as it has been for some time – the ephemera surrounding “The Satanist” may also be a factor in what occurred in “ILYAYD’s” creation. A sea of merchandise, three live albums (albeit, one being only a four-song Live EP), an EP, and relentless touring all surrounded “The Satanist.” Moreover, Nergal himself was the object of much attention due to his recovery from cancer, which fans were certainly ecstatic for as was he. As such, following the masterpiece that was “The Satanist” was an absolute mire of other events that may have impacted on the ability to allow the songwriting process to "organically" develop.

While this is largely postulation on my part, there is certainly evidence on this release of a deep lack of focus compared to previous Behemoth albums, and even a relative lack of purpose considering how profound the return “The Satanist” signaled was. In the first place, the exact elements that bring this album together as a cohesive whole are unclear almost immediately – the artwork, photography, song titles, and lyrics have very little relationship to each other aside from a loose overtone of blasphemy (recall the assertion that this was “Behemoth’s most blasphemous album yet” – which is, itself, not even really true). The choice of album title, one that is certainly unusual, is unfortunately not given any significant thematic clarification through the course of the album’s runtime either. From a strictly musical perspective, the lack of focus is quite evident by the intro and outro tracks – “Solve” and “Coagula.” While they ostensibly share some relationship, they end up being rather limp attempts at building atmosphere, an introduction and conclusion that are not only unclearly related to one another but that do not really flow in or out of the respective songs to which they are attached. When Behemoth has done intro-tracks/intro-sections previously, they have flowed effectively with the song to which they are adjoined: “Slaying the Prophets of Isa” is a natural continuation of “Rome, 64 C. E.,” for example. “Solve” has nothing to do with “Wolves of Siberia;” “Coagula” has nothing to do with “We Are the Next Thousand Years.”

There are certainly some good tracks on here. Despite the absolutely awful title, “God=Dog” is actually quite a solid Behemoth track – its sound evocative of “The Apostasy” or “Demigod” in a positive sense. “Sabbath Mater” is a great slice of mid-paced death metal with a truly fantastic vocal performance driving home the sensuous blasphemy (“Love me orgasmically – Fuck me ecstatically!/Genetrix Meretrix, I pledge my heart to thee/I bow down devotedly”). “Rom 5:18,” despite how simple it is, might be the single best song on the album and is certainly one of my favorites from Behemoth in recent years – a straightforward, gloomily robust work, executed with conviction, that is also hindered by a brutally unremarkable song title (remarkable only in its perhaps deliberate allusions to Marduk). And again, “Angelus XIII” is a powerful, fast-paced track whose appellation is predictable, rather drab imagery from the dust-laden corners of the black/death realm. These laudable compositions aside, unfortunately, a fair deal of the content here is either dispensable (“Wolves of Siberia” is a rather mediocre opener; “If Crucifixion Was Not Enough…” has very little that is memorable going on), or an outright disservice to the album (“We Are the Next 1000 Years” is a painfully ho-hum closer that certainly does not help the album linger in the memory – why the album did not close with the actually quite ominous “Havohej Pantocrator” is beyond me). There were multiple songs on this album that I found myself, quite frankly, bored by - which has rarely happened during the run-time of other Behemoth releases. On essentially every other Behemoth album, even if an individual song is a low-point, its situation within the track-list and service to the pacing of this album usually compensate for its individual weakness. Behemoth albums are, as a rule, worth listening to front-to-back. Alas, I have to admit, here, that is not the case - on relistens, I skip over "Wolves of Siberia;" I skip over "Bartzabel" and "If Crucifixion Was Not Enough...," and I most certainly skip over the last two tracks.

“ILYAYD” is quite simply an uninspired piece of work from one of the best bands currently working in the genre. The song titles give it away, the songwriting gives it away, and while the aesthetics of the album are interesting, their lack of relationship to each other also betray the uninspired nature of this release. There is, as usual, good material present here but it is far from elevating this album beyond its flaws. This is no “Cold Lake” or “Illud Divinum Insanus” or “In Torment in Hell.” Nonetheless, one cannot avoid the conclusion: this is without a doubt the worst album of Behemoth’s career thus far. “From the top of the highest mountain…”


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