This past Friday, Polish extreme metal overlords BEHEMOTH celebrated the release of their new album Opvs Contra Natvram — receiving critical acclaim from critics, fans, and tastemakers all over the world.
Today, the band crowns the release of their career’s most recent milestone with a new visual firework that perfectly pictures the dark and menacing atmosphere created by “Versvs Christvs” — a riveting extended track featuring piano and clean vocals — destined to turn heads.
Frontman and Behemoth visionary, Adam “Nergal” Darski, comments on the track, “Legions! Thank you for the amazing response to the new record! Wow! It feels extremely validating and liberating to have you with us. And now we present the crown jewel ‘Versvs Christvs.’ This video was our first time working the amazing director Agata Alexander, an L.A.-dwelling Pole whose vision and execution created this spectacular result. A special shout-out to our friends at Grupa 13 who assisted on the production. Feast your eyes on this, Legions!”
The band’s latest studio album is a stark reminder of the rebellion, individuality, and unflinching self-expression that BEHEMOTH’s phenomenal work imbues, shaped by a literary worldview. It also reflects a musical evolution, as there’s little doubt that Opvs Contra Natvram is BEHEMOTH’s strongest and most sophisticated musical collection to date.
Alongside the album release, Behemoth dropped a wretched yet addictive pocket game together with Spotify, operable on mobile or desktop, that you can explore here.
Users must endeavor to keep the virtual cross balanced for as long as possible. Take your eyes off the game for a second – and it’s “Game over.” Top scoring participants have the chance to win a pair of tickets for Behemoth’s upcoming The European Siege tour with Arch Enemy, Carcass, and Unto Others in a city of their choice.
Behemoth are not only the creators of Poland’s extreme metal scene, but they are masters of their vision and showcasing what a band can achieve when hard work is put in. With Opvs Contra Natvram they have created 10 fresh chapters, created at a very strange time for the world. Their goal to create something new, something that doesn’t sound like anything that has gone before, is an ambitious one.
In the annals of metal, there is no band more synonymous with an unswerving commitment to the single-minded defiance of expectation than BEHEMOTH.
Over the course of their remarkable 31-year career, these Polish hellraisers — spearheaded by Adam Darski, aka Nergal — are more than just the architects of their country’s legendary extreme metal scene. Over the course of three decades and previous eleven albums, Nergal’s singular vision has forged BEHEMOTH into something far more than a mere blackened death metal band.
Beyond any confines of genre, they have grown to become no less than the personification of rebellion, individuality and unflinching self-expression informed by a literate worldview and worldliness that’s resulted in a locking of horns with everything from the mainstream press to the Polish Catholic church — most notably manifesting in Nergal’s trial for blasphemy in 2010 that only served to expose the deep-seated hypocrisies that his music seeks to challenge.
It also highlighted the distinct lack of fucks that he has to give. Now world-renowned and yet exuberantly underground in their convictions, BEHEMOTH are perhaps the unlikeliest of success stories, but if their stratospheric ascent and hard-won commercial achievement can be attributed to anything, it’s a cast iron unwillingness to compromise.
