As the late Terry Pratchett wrote: “Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” While darkness is an abundant source of frenetic energy, rarely is it manipulated with such fervent beauty as to strike fear in to the hearts of man. Today as we are blinded by the light, our primal fears of what is hidden within the darkness is made dumb at the flick of a switch, like an artificial lobotomy. In the resurgence of Satanic Black Metal Behexen is nigh and even the holy ghost should quake in fear.
The Poisonous Path is the fifth album from Finland’s Behexen and swallows the fantastic claims made of the light and crushes its unhealthy spirit through waves of dark matter. In harmonious malaise the recording sounds like it was an unearthly party in a burning cathedral. In accordance with the canon of true black metal the room sounds spacious. Lifting this unholy sacrament up through the ceiling, breaking it with powerful and incendiary riffs, to challenge the heavens into unending hell. The loud and abrasive percussion tirelessly accompanies dense riffs that further elate the vicious charge. Razing the sky and gate crashing Gods’ wake.
8/10
