This is hailed as a classic in Black Metal circles, but I have to say I don’t really get it. BEHERIT Drawing Down the Moon is the first album from these Finnish Black Metal band. I’d heard this before and felt that the recording quality of the guitars and well, the music itself was so abysmal that you can’t hear that much of what is going on. This is especially true when the band start to play fast. The samples and intro’s etc…. are quite clear but the majority of the actual tunes you cant make out much at all unless they go into a slow section. Luckily there’s quite a few slow sections in this record. I felt that it really took away away from the listening experience.
The album released in 1993 starts off with a cool intro and then into a pretty intense song but its very underwhelming when the music kicks in and its half the volume of the intro. There’s a slow section with some trance like sections later on this first song “Salomons Gate” where the feel they’re going for becomes apparent. At this point I’m starting to dig this a little more.
The album has a very “demo” feel, and once your ears tune into it, it really starts to grown on you if you give this a chance. Don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it a classic but listening to it again has definitley lifted my opinion of it a bit. This is another great one to listen to in the dark. I do have to give the band credit for doing something a little more experimental though.
The music has a very satanic hateful feel about it. They’re not going for anything too ambitious in the way of musical progression here, but for what it is, it kind of works. I’d love to hear a remastered version of this where you can hear a bit more of what the guitars are doing.
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