Review by Ben for Behemoth - Sventevith (Storming Near the Baltic) (1995)
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.