UMUR
"Venenum" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Danish, Aarhus based death metal act Baest. The album was released through Century Media Records in September 2019. It´s the successor to "Danse Macabre" from 2018, which was an album that was generally well received by fans and critics alike and created a hype in their native country (and also gave them attention on the international scene), which meant Baest a little unexpectedly was mentioned in Danish mainstream media (they were even the subject of a public service television documentary) and successful performances on the 2019 Copenhell festival and the 2019 Roskilde Festival further strengthened their profile. Baest had thereby successfully established themselves as the new darlings of the Danish death metal scene, but they also had success outside the borders of Denmark and were planning to tour Europe when the Corona virus hit and postponed their plans.
Stylistically the material on "Venenum" continues the old school death metal style of "Danse Macabre (2018)". If you enjoyed the predecessor, there is no way in hell you aren´t going to appreciate "Venenum". The two albums are very similar in style and also feature sound productions which are close to sounding alike. It´s still Morbid Angel with an old school Swedish death metal guitar tone that I´m reminded of when listening to Baest. They often spice things up with the use of some middle eastern scales and leads motifs, but mostly this is just good solid old school death metal packed in a raw and powerful sounding production.
Not much has happened in terms of musical development since the debut album, and the same issues with the songwriting persist. While "Venenum" is a high quality death metal album when it comes to the musicianship and the sound production, Baest don´t yet master writing consistently catchy material, and only few tracks stand out and are memorable after the album has finished playing. That´s not a disaster given the musical style, which isn´t exactly designed to be easily accessible, but I´d still have appreciated the album more, if Baest had been able to make the tracks stick. Sometimes a moment of brilliance appear, like using a lyric line and a diction very close to the Simon & Garfunkel lyric line: "And in the naked light I saw. Ten thousand people, maybe more" from their famous song "The Sound of Silence", on their "Nihil" track, og the catchy lyrics on "Sodomize", but just as often the tracks are just solid and lack the last memorability to really shine.
So upon conclusion "Venenum" is a good quality sophomore release by Baest, but it´s not the quantum Leap which sometimes happen between a debut album and the follow-up release. There are loads of promise here though and I´m sure there are more to come from Baest in the future. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.