Beherit (band)

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Origin Rovaniemi
Country Finland
Years active 1989 - 1996
Genres Black metal
Dark ambient
Labels Spinefarm Records

Beherit were a black metal band from Finland. The band's name was taken from the Syriac word for Satan. They released two full-length albums and many demos of raw and minimalistic black metal, before disbanding soon after the experimental 1993 album Drawing Down the Moon, which is now considered a classic of the genre. The band's mainman, Marko Laiho, better known as Nuclear Holocausto, still released two more albums under the name Beherit. These albums can mostly be described as dark ambient. Although they were completely electronic, the albums carried the atmosphere of the band's black metal recordings.

Contents

[edit] History

Beherit was formed in 1989 by vocalist and guitarist Nuclear Holocaust Vengeance (Marko Laiho), bassist Black Jesus (Arjo Wennström) and drummer Sodomatic Slaughter (Jari Pirinen).[1] The band released three demos the following year; Seventh Blasphemy, Morbid Rehearsals and Demonomancy, and also gathered reputation for their live shows, which included pig heads and goats on stage.[2] Beherit's first full-length, The Oath of Black Blood, was released in 1991. The album is traditional, fast and brutal old school black metal, heavily influenced by death metal, thrash metal and grindcore. However, it is not a separately recorded studio album. The band got some funding for recording an album from their record label at the time, Turbo Music, but supposedly spent the money on alcohol. The label then released their demo Demonomancy and 7" EP Dawn of Satan's Millennium as a compilation, without the band's permission, and named it The Oath of Black Blood, which was originally supposed to be the name of the new album. The album is now generally accepted as a full-length and Spinefarm Records later re-issued it in 2005.

Beherit's best-known and most influential album, Drawing Down the Moon, was their first official LP and was released in 1993. The album was highly experimental within the black metal scene, as the band used whispers and space-like electronic sounds to strengthen its hypnotic atmosphere. Drawing Down the Moon was to remain the band's last black metal release, as they split up the next year. Laiho still recorded two albums of dark ambient music, H418ov21.C and Electric Doom Synthesis, and released them under the band's name. As the band didn't reform and Laiho had eventually lost interest in black metal, he went on to continue his musical career in dark ambient as "Suuri Shamaani" and in hardcore techno as "DJ Gamma".

Despite their popularity now, Beherit was once hated among many black metal enthusiasts, especially in Norway. There was even a Norwegian band called "Fuck Beherit". The band released two rehearsal tapes; 10-track "Do Beherit" and 3-track "Total Shit". There are different theories for the reasons of Beherit's unpopularity in the early 1990s, but the most common is the differencies between the Norwegian and Finnish scenes. Laiho commented on this in an interview for a magazine in 1994 [1]: Now there are more people against us ‘cause of these new rules and all these stupid rumours spread by our Norwegian enemies... but I don’t care so much. But that’s a bit sad that the black metal underground scene is totally split.

[edit] Trivia

[edit] Band members

[edit] Former members

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

[edit] EPs

  • Dawn of Satan's Millennium (1991)
  • Werewolf, Semen and Blood (1992)
  • Messe Des Morts (1993)

[edit] Splits

  • Beherit / Death Yell (1991)
  • Beherit / Impaled Nazarene (1991)
  • Messe Des Morts / Angel Cunt (1999) (with Archgoat)

[edit] Demos

  • Seventh Blasphemy (1990)
  • Morbid Rehearsals (1990)
  • Demonomancy (1990)
  • Diabolus Down There (1991)
  • Unreleased Studio Tracks (1991)
  • Promo 1992 (1992)

[edit] Compilations

  • Beast of Beherit - Complete Worxxx (1999)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Rivadavia, Ed. Beherit - Biography. All Music Guide. Retrieved on 2006-12-13.
  2. ^ Beherit. Discogs. Retrieved on 2006-12-13.

[edit] External links

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