Review by Rexorcist for Behemoth - The Shit ov God (2025)

Even though I believe in God, I've made a point of forgiving people for sins that don't really affect me. Now matter how much I bitch and whine, there will be people who disagree with me on philosophy, so might as well accept it as a part of the natural world while acknowledging the difference in philosophy. So I've heard all the Slayer albums, a good deal of Bathory, and am of the opinion that the best death metal band is Septicflesh.  But Behemoth really made their point of hatred towards religion a million times over, so do we really need it again?

Considering how familiar this album is, I'm going to have to say "not this time." Behemoth's "The Shit ov God" is obviously built specifically to get anti-religious people to buy the album, as if they're relying on edge factor. Newsflash: that's how people LOSE interest. Hell, Wes Craven used to think being edgy was what mattered most, and his early career was pretty downhill once he hated and disowned his own porn flick, and switched right to THEMES, which made his movies much better overtime. But Behemoth took the opposite route.

Now the two good things that can be said about this album are that the production is absolutely perfect. The crystal clarity is some of the finest in metal, but that's to be expected from veterans. As well, half the riffs are quite catchy, which really does help. I found myself really enjoying the bits that got quite proggy, like the midtro of O Venvs, Come. So there's a strong metal energy here that can help everything be at least fairly enjoyable to some, but this is also an extremely typical album for them. I said half the riffs were catchy, but the other half are so standard that you can pull them off of any obscure crap lost in the RYM charts. So only half the time does the production justify these performances. As well, taking a look at the lyrics, they feel thrown together and basic. The overabundance of old-timey / medieval phrasing seems to distract from that aggressive, angry nature that they're trying to promote so brutally, so the ancient vibes and the religious anger kind of contradict each other like matter and antimatter.

So this most recent entry in the Behemoth catalogue was an attempt at bringing back the vibes of their most beloved work, The Satanist, but the quality steers a bit closer to their middling debut, Sventevith. Fun moments and boring moments are heald together with a strong metallic presence and pure diamond production, so while it's perfectly listenable, it has its problems.