Friday, June 5, 2009

MOTD - Behemoth: Old school Swedish Heavy Metal that sounds like old school British Heavy Metal

Mp3 Of The Day



Band/Artist: Behemoth
Song: Death Wings
Album: Death Wings (single)
Style: Heavy Metal
country/location: Sundsvall, Sweden
release: 1982

Around the early 1980s, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal was in full force, churning out hundreds of bands. Some that made it, and some that never released more than a demo. Meanwhile, other parts of the world were starting to follow suit. Sweden by this time had a number of bands releasing demos and albums. This band, Behemoth, is one of those bands. (much to the surprise of everyone, I initially got this band because of the fact they share the same name as a more well known Polish black/death metal band hehe)

Behemoth shares a lot of similarities to the NWOBHM sound, the gritty guitars, being highly melodic but still rough, the slight punk atmosphere and speed. So much are the similarities that they often get mistaken for a British band (even I made this mistake not too long ago). The song starts off with a melodic/shimmery guitar before blasting into blistering almost thrashy riffs that permeate the entire song. The song speeds along while the singer shows off his chops. His voice is a mid to high range, it's clean but still enough power and rock to follow the music. The guitarist is no solo slouch. The solos are melodic but incredibly fast and skillful. The production certainly adds to the gritty nature of the music, and wonderfully so. It's a delicious old school gem!

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