Behemoth – The Shit Ov God Album Review

I will admit, I am a recent convert to Behemoth. However, when I say recent I mean that while I’ve known about them since close to their early releases I was going through a stage in life where I wasn’t interested in hearing about or listening to new music that was being released. This changed close to a year ago when I first discovered The Satanist and have since dug through their discography one amazing album after another. Some better than others. Some not albums I will ever own, others I can’t seem to get enough of. The Shit Ov God falls into the latter category. 

Behemoth’s latest inverted gospel offering to the world, The Shit Ov God, is going to be something to a lot of people. For some this will be the album they choose to not listen to because of other people’s views or comments. For others this will be their introduction to Behemoth. To others still this will be another album to add to their list of favourite Behemoth albums, scratch that, their list of favourite albums. Of these all I will be the latter.

The album opens on the track The Shadow Elite. A track that I feel does more than just serve as the albums opener, it’s your acceptance into an elite club. It’s Behemoth’s invitation to join them, become Legion. The track opens with atmospheric noises, visceral and gloomy, but only long enough to lull you into a sense of calm before the drums blast and pull you into a tremolo picking, chord slide rage that only Behemoth could conjure. The track is blistering evidence that even 30 years in Behemoth can still put out songs with aggression as real and in your face as any modern Blackened Death Metal band.

If you expect things to slow up as you progress through this album, sorry my friend but you’re going to have to go listen to something else if you’re needing a break from the relentless assault that was The Shadow Elite. The album progresses with Sowing Salt. While this track has sections of mid-tempo reprieves, the sections in between feature a blistering riff constructed of tremolo picking, pick and chord slides. The drumming in this track is the most stand out instrument for me. The fills will kick you in the chest, throw you to the ground and just as you’re getting back up the barrage of bass drum hits will have you flat on your ass again.

Next up we hit the track that is so polarizing, some called it cringe – what the fuck do you expect, this isn’t some hair metal band, it’s Behemoth. The title track, The Shit Ov God, is one of the slower tempo tracks on the album, but make no mistake it hits just as hard as the others. I’m honestly not sure what the issue is with the title? I’ve seen so many comments online since the release of this track that people don’t have any issue with the song, but dislike the title. What pulls me in the most to this track is Nergal’s vocals during the chorus, “I for ingrate, E to eradicate, S for the scorn…”, there is just something in the sound of his voice for this section, I don’t know if it’s anger, disdain, or just pure hatred, but it’s different in some way. As for the letters themselves, from what I find – I am no theologian so please don’t quote me on this but the letters are IESUSJHS. The little bit of research I did on this after hearing the song I was able to find that Medieval and early Christian texts using Latin could have spelled Jesus as Iesus, as the letter J was not used in Latin. JHS is a common Christian monogram, “IHS”, again no J in Latin, but an abbreviation for “Jesus Hominum Salvator”. So while not everyone is going to be as big a fan of this track as I am, the hidden and historical symbolism hidden in the track just solidifies my opinion of the being one of the best on the album.

I don’t want to continue with a track by track account of the album so I’ll just provide a few details of some of the remaining tracks:

Lvciferaeon is another breakneck track with short periods of mid-tempo breaks. The lyrics of this track provide even more to dig into and try to get a glimpse inside the mind of Nergal, which truly fascinates me. “If I am God, Everyone Is. If I am not, none Exists!” – I mean come on. So, in order for there to be a God, we all must be and if we’re not all God, then there can’t be any? I’ll be continuing to look into the lyrics and see what other meaning I can pull. I hope to hear more about this track from Nergal.

The album continues with To Drown The Svn In Wine another rager of a track – not much else to say on this one other than I get the feeling that Behemoth felt the need to show that they were still relevant and able to put out an songs that will be not only talked about but remembered, dug into, researched and speculated on for years to come. 

The only other track on this album that I feel needs mention is O, Venvs Come! This track has such a massive sound to it that I would be remiss to not mention it. Few tracks on the album have this kind of magnitude. I know I’ve said their all amazing, but this track just has a presence that takes me back to when I first started getting into Behemoth and hearing tracks like The Satanist, Batzabel or Decade of Therion. You get pulled in and just can’t seem to hear all that there is to hear. The layers on this song are immense and immaculately constructed. It’s the slowest track on the album but by no means is this a skippable track. There are sections of heaviness that you can’t help but nod along – this will be an amazing live track.

Not that I feel Behemoth ever went away, this album is more than just a return to form for this trio. 20 years from now, I honestly hope to see Behemoth take the path of so many bands today and play this album in it’s entirety live on tour. Behemoth hasn’t released just another album with The Shit Ov God, Behemoth has released their Unholy New Testament.