BEHERIT — Drawing Down the Moon (review)

BEHERIT — Drawing Down the Moon album cover Album · 1993 · Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Drawing Down the Moon" is the debut full-length studio album by Finnish black/death metal act Beherit. The album was released through Spinefarm Records in November 1993. Beherit formed in 1988 under the Horny Malformity monicker, but soon changed their name to Pseudochrist. In 1989 they again changed their name to Beherit. After releasing three demos and an EP under the Beherit monicker they once more changed their name to The Lord Diabolus and released one demo in 1991 under that monicker before ultimately changing their name back to Beherit only a few months later. In 1992 they released the "Promo 1992" demo, which marked a change in their sound from the early releases...

...and that change is continued on "Drawing Down the Moon". The early Beherit (and The Lord Diabolus) releases were all raw, grim, and savage sounding black/death metal releases with little variation. Pretty much just relentless tremolo picking and blasting drums delivered in a caustic aggressive manner. "Promo 1992" and now "Drawing Down the Moon" show a different side of Beherit. Although there are still fast-paced blasting black metal sections featured on the album, the pace is generally lowered and the album therefore features quite a few mid-paced and even doomy atmospheric sections (often featuring keyboards), which make Beherit´s music a much more varied and intriguing listen.

It´s an album featuring a dark, eerie, and at times even ritualistic occult atmosphere and it´s proof that you don´t have to play fast and aggressive all the time to get your message across. The odd sounding chorus and reverb effect laden snarling blackened vocals take some time getting used to (they often sound like they are spoken/whispered into the microphone), but they are one of the unique features of "Drawing Down the Moon", which provide the album with it´s gloomy and evil atmosphere (along with the often eerie sounding keyboards). Not enough praise is given to extreme metal vocalists who stand out...so I´ll give some praise here.

Upon conclusion "Drawing Down the Moon" is both a really weird and very unique extreme metal release, featuring elements from both black metal and doom metal, but it´s presented in such an unconventional fashion, that you can´t really label it neither. The thin and odd sounding production job makes the album an even more strange listen, and it´s hard to wrap your head around what to think of it. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.
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