Behemoth - Sventevith (Storming Near the Baltic) (1995)^{Release ID: 2519}

Not an amazing or groundbreaking album by any means, but Sventevith is solid, atmospheric black metal.

Behemoth were originally a rather raw black metal band, producing albums a long way removed from the rather clinical, polished death metal that they perform today. I must admit that while I do enjoy quite a bit of their modern material, I'd never really spent much time with this earlier incarnation of the band. I thought I'd change that and decided Sventevith might be a pretty good place to start. It turns out that this album is an entertaining piece of work, but I can't say that it's anything particularly original or amazing, and not something I will go back to all that often.

The first thing to state is that the production is very raw and the performance of the musicians a bit sloppy at times. But one gets the feeling that this unprocessed recording was exactly what they had in mind. As any fan of black metal would know, underproduced material can sometimes be the most atmospheric. With Sventevith, I find this statement to be only half true. There is indeed a fair amount of atmosphere throughout, but the riffs are a bit too weak in the mix so there's just not enough to hold onto. The decent shrieking vocals, the sloppy yet adequate drums and the simple yet effective keyboards all get plenty of volume, but I can't say I recall many of the guitar riffs after it's finished since they're just so remote.

It's not often that I would think that a black metal album could really do with better production, particularly one by Behemoth who I consider to be way over produced these days, but this is an instance where I think that rings true. In the end, I think Sventevith is an above average album that just doesn't do enough to be essential in any way. All this being said, Chant of the Eastern Lands, From the Pagan Vastlands and Forgotten Cult of Aldaron in particular are really enjoyable tracks and the numerous acoustic and keyboard instrumentals add nicely to the atmosphere. I look forward to checking out Grom next to see how they evolved.

Behemoth apparently grew a lot from their early days with their shit demo and their so-so debut album. I never expected anything less when I decided to check them out in chronological order (although I admit I heard the studio album before the earlier demo). So how does their sophomore attempt stand up?

Early on there are slight improvements in the band's songs. Among these faint improvements are a slightly more diverse attempt at songwriting structures and progressiveness. We even get some early hints of dungeon synth, such as the keyboards in the last part of the seven-minute epic, “Hidden in a Fog,” in the background of “Forgotten Cult of Aldaron” and the entirety of the following two-minute segue, “Ancient."  Still, the album had some bad production values, and the whole album feels more like a garage demo than a sophomore studio release. Plus, whatever surprises there are in the album pretty much run dry before side B. And by the time of “Wolves Guard My Coffin” it basically acts like a punk album before other tropes take the end.

The improvement of the band's performances from their debut to this second album show promise. But you wouldn't know it just from these two albums alone, as there's still a lot of growing left to do. I wouldn't really “recommend” this album to anyone as there are so many better albums that do better things.

59/100