Behemoth takes its name from the biblical beast, suggesting immediately the type of style its founders were going for. The band formed in 1991 with Nergal being the only original member to still be in the current line-up of the band. With Nergal on the guitar and lead vocals, the other two original members consisted of Adam ‘Baal Ravenlock’ Muraszko on drums and Adam ‘Desecrator’ Malinowski on the guitar and bass. The band started by recording demos in the early 90s, which gained little attention anywhere outside the Polish underground metal scene. They began to tour during this period, but failed to gain a large fan base due to bad promotion.
The band’s fifth album saw their real rise to fame as a headlining tour soon followed. The album, titled ‘Thelema.6’ marked the band’s real move towards blackened death metal. The album showed off the band’s precise and impressive guitar parts and drumming and was heavily supported by the press and media. With the major success of this album, the band was able to play at a number of prestigious live events like Wacken Open Air, With Full Force, Inferno Metal Festival, Mystic Festival, and Mind Over Matter Autumn, all of which helped them to increase their fan base.
With ten albums to their name as of 2014, hit singles such as ‘Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel’ and ‘Decade of Therion’ and a number of nominations, and one win, from the Polish Fryderyk Awards, the band has built quite a following for itself.
Behemoth is a black metal band anti church band., so they come out clad in Gothic leather or battle regalia and have their faces painted white and black with unique patterns. They come out flames ablaze on the stage with awesome pyros, massive drum set and their ambiance is overpowering. The stage is simple with the band banners and some art work.
During the sets the crowd goes wild, chants, sings, moshes. People get trampled over during some of the moshes. I mostly go for the music because I do not care to get hurt, but the one concert I went too they brought out "fake blood" and sprayed the crowd which was pretty unique and neat. The feed on the crowds energy and so does the crowd.
During each song intermission they will scream at the crowd, give them some background information or tell them to get ready for the mosh, this usually gets the masses riled up and makes them charge at each other like animals. Most of the lyrics and singing are guttural screamings so you actually need to enjoy this type of music to be able to understand it.
The show they put on is amazing for small venue, i am sure the bigger venues for them include more theatrics and better props
Plenty of metal bands talk the talk; Dimmu Borgir, though, most definitely walk the walk. They’ve spent over twenty years now delighting and terrifying their audiences in equal measure, and as you’d expect from a band with albums called, amongst other things, Godless Savage Garden, Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia and Death Cult Armageddon, the word ‘compromise’ has never been in their vocabulary. Whilst their sound has evolved over the years, they’ve usually focused on symphonic black metal, blending the typical ear-shredding volume and unrelenting heaviness of black metal in general with an atmosphere and ambience that provides a counterbalance to the morbid lyrical themes with which they concern themselves. The release of their most recent record, Abrahadabra, in 2010 saw a first for the Norwegian trio; they performed live with a full symphony orchestra in their native Oslo. They took a more conventional Dimmu Borgir show on the road, too, with their most recent UK tour, in late 2011, billed - with tongue perhaps in cheek - as An Evening with Dimmu Borgir. Giving fans a choice of three classic records - For All Tid, Stormblast and Enthrone Darkness Triumphant - they played two sets in intimate venues; one of those records in its entirety, and then a greatest hits selection. A new Borgir record is now overdue - expect news of both that and further UK dates soon, after a recent return to the festival circuit.