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Behexen > By the Blessing of Satan > Reviews > HviteGuden
Behexen - By the Blessing of Satan

Extreme aggression - 99%

HviteGuden, July 21st, 2019

By the Blessing of Satan is a continuation of Behexen's blasphemous journey in the dimensions of fierce and extremely aggressive black metal. On this album the band develops the sound of Rituale Satanum. Those albums are similar starting with the artwork and the lyrics, finishing with the sound, but there's a one main difference - By the Blessing of Satan manages to become even more hateful.

By the Blessing of Satan isn't just more aggressive, than the previous album, it is the most aggressive album of Behexen and, furthermore, it is even can be put in the list of the most aggressive and extreme works in whole music. It's just utterly hateful. This time there's no sorts of intro or whatsoever, Behexen wasn't able to hold his wrath for a single second. The album starts with fast and blustering riffs.

So, the music of By the Blessing of Satan has a raw aggressive sound and more often is based on high tempo parts. It's a common move for Behexen to create a powerful atmosphere of hate and darkness. However, there is quite some an amount of slower parts on the album and still they represent all the necessary qualities convincingly. The best example of such display is "Watchers Of My Black Temple", the main melody of it is slow, yet it is the same harsh and sinister. Anyway, every slower track has a fast and explosive culmination.

Ironically the vocals became a bit less caustic, than they had been on Rituale Satanum. Yet this change isn't significant. Torog will use another type of vocals in the future, but on By the Blessing of Satan his screaming has only minor changes and still it doesn't only fit the music, but underlines all the malignance of the last. In whole, as it has already been mentioned, By the Blessing of Satan still sounds like the harshest album.

This release is near-perfect and has no weak sides at all. Yet there are some things, which can be highlighted. "Fist Of The Satanist" has a very catchy main melody, it's written in mid-tempo and possesses somewhat of an epic mood. The slow-starting melody of "Black Metal Baptism" represents a quite hypnotic mood and later this melody spectacularly turns to a fast, chaotic and brutal part. The already mentioned "Watchers Of My Black Temple" causes the same effect and on its slower parts it sounds gloomier, than any other melody of the album, what is also a highlight.

So, the second full-length of Behexen shouldn’t disappoint the ones, who became a fan of the first album. There is a lesser amount of melodic parts, the level of hatred has increased and the main value of By the Blessing of Satan is right in this fact. The album possesses a convincing aggression and the trademark Behexen's intense atmosphere.