Sabbat of Behezaël

The debut LP from Belgium’s Perverted Ceremony is a rare thing in this day and age; no gimmicks, no excess of surplus ideas, and no gratuitous aping of an older school tradition. In fact, they are so confident with the material on ‘Sabbat of Behezael’ that they tried to supress our ability to hear it beneath demo quality production. And I’m afraid it’s there that we must start when dissecting this specimen. Recording and producing a halfway decent sounding album is easier than ever in this day and age. But it has led to an unremarkable uniformity across many different styles, with little to no consideration given for the kind of mix that would suit the music itself. Instead everyone seems fixated on what a wider audience expects a heavy guitar based album to sound like and mixes accordingly.

One way around this for budding young artists is to once again trawl the past for clues as to how the future could be shaped. And that’s precisely what Perverted Ceremony have done here, with a demo quality mix reminiscent of Emperor’s early material. But this somehow manages to avoid sounding ‘like’ your standard black metal fudge. The reason is – of course – the music that lurks beneath the static. Rather than these pronounced aesthetic choices being a distraction (or a cover for lack of character) as they so often are, it’s as if Perverted Ceremony wanted to test the metal of ‘Sabbat of Behezael’ by holding it beneath a four-track mix to see if the material would still stand up regardless.

And stand up it does. ‘Sabbat of Behezael’ sits within that dark and primal tradition of American black metal of Demoncy and to a lesser extent Profanatica. Simple evil sounding riffs are worked through variations of speed and rhythm, layered with lead guitar harmonies. Although this album does not lack in rhythmic diversity, it really shines when a trance like chord sequence is picked up and run with, sometimes complemented by subtle low-end synths, other times by simple guitar leads. The repetition allows the listener to catch up with the music, and orientate their mind in the face of all the static.

Someone definitely sat in front of a drumkit during the recording of this album. They may have even played it for a bit in a way that connects up with the rest of the music. But it’s really more a suggestion of percussion than a dominant feature. In this sense the mix presents an interesting challenge for any competent drummer (as…ahem *checks notes* Morbid Messiah clearly is). Play too many complex fills and intricate rhythms and it gets lost in the fudge, but play too simplistically and the music loses all dynamism and drive. The result is a modestly balanced drum track that bolsters the riffs without outshining them; one that is only occasionally lost in the fray.

I’d stop short of saying Perverted Ceremony is bucking the trend or breathing fresh air all over my day. But they have reminded me of some underutilised virtues from black metal’s long dark past. Letting the lo-fi production qualities go some way to dictating the shape and form of the music sometimes yields interesting results. This self-imposed limitation that Perverted Ceremony have applied to themselves has resulted in some interesting and novel ideas that are sorely lacking on many of their more polished contemporaries. From the obscurity of the void, new life takes route.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

So I came across Perverted Ceremony and bought it just because the cover looked so sick! Knowing now that this is their debut full-length, “Sabbat of Behezaël” is without a doubt a masterpiece that left me speechless and wanting for more by this Belgian project. This creation is by the works of two musicians who have never been seen before; other than Morbid Messiah's very own Moenen of Xezbeth, which was released in 2017 around the same time as this album, Perverted Ceremony seems to be the two members' pride and joy for now.

This record is strangling, cold, bloody, and demonic. The album has this dizzying blend of pure noise accompanied by an evil sounding, vintage organ at times which can be heard in the opening to "Crypt of Behezaël". The sound introduced immediately proves that this record was recorded without much refinement, adding to the cavernous aura given off. Often, the meld of sound seemingly darts from slow to fast, keeping you fastened to your seat as you attempt to hang on for dear life while spinning through a hellish black sacrament. The tempo is changing constantly, making the noise a lot more notable than many other contemporary black metal projects. This tempo change is noticed especially in "Whips of Impurity", which is also the song I find most interesting in the entire album. The riffs of the guitar are clearly tremolo along with a low bass which creates a dark layering to confuse the listener. Unfortunately, the bass is not so special though, with such creative music-work, I would have hoped that the bass differed from the notes of the guitar. For example, "Black Fur Demoniac" has the loudest bass work in the entire album, however, it turns out to just be the same notes from the guitar earlier. The guitar-work, especially in "Necrolactation Unborn Goat", is just mean, accompanying this scream that hacks from a demon being strangled by Satan himself. Speaking of the vocals, they are an incredible ode to Beherit. Just like with Beherit's own Nuclear Holocausto Vengeance, Morbid Messiah's vocal work makes his whispering become hissing, and that hissing become wailing. Often, the vocals swirl to become a black mass of demoncy; it sounds occultish, it feels occultish, it is occultish.

This album was a fantastic addition to 2017; I found myself spinning it more than I had imagined and currently continue to do so. In fact, I felt more compelled to listen to this album than I did with Beherit's "Drawing Down the Moon", although that album is more than 20 years older. It may not be a gamechanger to the black metal scene, but it certainly holds up to many bands with a distinguished history in metal. I really do enjoy this debut and wish for this project's success; I know I will be keeping an eye out for any future records by them.

Perverted Ceremony is a black metal band out of Belgium. Their debut full-length is called “Sabbat of Behezaël”, and it is completely rotten. This is “Drawing Down the Moon” worship at its best, and similar to what Void Meditation Cult did with “Utter the Tongue of the Dead”.

The first track, entitled “Intro”, is a slow buildup of swirling winds/noise and creepy organ. Also, the first thing we are ever introduced to is the unavoidable production fuzziness (more on this later). While, an almost drastically different style of track (no vocals/guitar/bass/drums) than every other track on the album, this track is incredible when it comes to foreshadowing the rest of the record. “Sabbat of Behezaël” is evil, and the band (a two-piece) wants you to know it immediately.

Nothing here is super complex or is overly impressive in a technicality sense. This album is focused on creating a mood/feeling, and that’s where this album succeeds. The guitars are super grimy. They are low and distorted. They pick along abrasively. This coupled with the Pulsing deep ditch digging bass is a dramatic force. The guitars also accentuate this low-end riffing with high-pitched wailing guitar leads (like 2:10-2:34 in “Black Fur Demoniac”) and bleating guitar noodling with a focus more on chaos rather than technical virtuosity (like 2:39-2:59 in “Whips of Impurity”). Sometimes there are also some keyboard strings or organ in the background (or like in the intro to “Crypt of Behezaël”), nothing overly prominent, but sauntering about in the background. This does nothing more than enhance the overall sound. The vocals are a mixture of low bestial warnings and loud-whisper caustic hissing. All of the songs are an amalgam of those various things, while being very adept at playing both fast and aggressively as well as slow and mesmerizing, and switching to and from those. Everything molds together perfectly. Everything is evil.

The production is a real winner here for me. I don’t know if this is a bad production on purpose (my guess) or just bad production. Regardless, this is bad production done right. Seeing as the album isn’t relying on catchy riffs or neo-classical soloing, but instead attempting to create the soundtrack to an evil ritualistic black mass sacrifice, the overarching fuzz and just general muddiness only seeks to enhance the overall muffled subterranean sound. I like how low the drums are in the mix. They’re not doing much more than pumping the music forward (an important ingredient though), so their placement in the mix helps you focus on everything that’s happening around them, as opposed to sounding like an offensive pummeling bantering ram - which lets the guitar and bass do that.

“Sabbat of Behezaël” is 9 tracks of candlelight, cold concrete, blood, and and vile nastiness. It wants to be Beherit, but it wants to be a little more barbaric, and maybe a little more messy. I think it does a pretty good job of getting there. None of the songs are especially memorable by themselves, but the album as a whole is dire journey into the depths.