Engram [Import]

Beherit | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 16, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Fontana Universal
• ASIN: B0029LJAGI
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #26,662 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The resurrection of black metal after post-1994 slump, February 15, 2010

By 

death metal and black metal "death metal and ... (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Engram (Audio CD)

Beherit returned to reclaim and then reinvent black metal after a long slump. For those who are just getting into black metal, it's important to know that the genre flowered from 1990-1994, then stagnated as tons of new people came in and started regressing toward the mean. By 2000, most black metal sounded like punk rock with blasphemy added.

Coming out of retirement, one of the originators of the style and one of the bands who explored dark ambient as a means of finding similar expressions, Beherit, returned with a powerful album. Deliberately written in a style like the early Bathory releases, this album attempts to re-state classic black metal themes in a way that separates content and form from "sound." You can dress up any old music in a "sound," like by adding really distorted guitars and fast drums. But it takes a lot more to make it belong to the genre in spirit and outlook.

"Engram" does this really effectively. Seven simple songs with fast riffs lead up to an epic doomy track, giving this album the feel of a concept. Deepending that sense is that allusion to past themes of Beherit and black metal in general, as if re-tracing the evolution of the genre, and then showing us a new way with that final track. Even more, the CD begins with a very basic riff over which a keyboard solo creates atmosphere not unlike Dead Can Dance "In the Land of the Blind the One-Eyed Are Kings."

Even further, the album goes out of its way to embrace old-school black metal themes and expand on them with nuance and depth, but not "quirk" as the trendy bands do. This album is enjoyable for repeated listens and gets more infectious with time. It renovates the black metal style by showing us there's plenty of potential left, and by tackling the hardest case, which is the basic and violent extremist fringe of this movement, it again shows us the black metal potential for finding beauty in darkness.

I'd recommend this album to anyone who likes old school underground metal, or has a really open mind and likes good music that hides its complexity in song structure, not tricked-out riffs. After a dearth of interesting albums, "Engram" is like a breath of fresh air that hides in an old favorite. While most people have not yet seen it, this is the first shot in a revolution badly needed in this promising art form.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Could be better; should be better, November 8, 2010

By 

A Dinosaur-Shaped Car "Homosexual Porn" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Engram (Audio CD)

An awful effort this ain't, but it feels like Mr. Holocausto was a tad too zealous to re-assert his lingering black metal cred after years of awkward electronic music; consequently the album suffers from conceptual immaturity.

Not everything is bad: "Axiom Heroine" is the most interesting track here with its folky minor key synth loping organically about the starkness of the riffs, and "Pimeyden Henki" is a rare, somewhat successful attempt at introspection and melancholy from a band known for its barbarism.

Sadly, much of the rest is forgettable, one riff Bathory worship with banal lyrics about Satan and burning churches I'd expect from a children's band like Dark Funeral. Then, as a sort of mind-numbing denouement, the 15 minute, one-dimensional plodder "Demon Advance" makes me want to take a blasphemous nap.

Overall passable, but not good enough from the guy responsible for that smoldering monument, that albatross of black metal, Drawing Down the Moon.

4.0 out of 5 stars Beherit's return, November 18, 2011

By 

FGS762 (Orlando,FL) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Engram (MP3 Download)

I discovered Beherit after they had already broken up for years then reunited in 2009. Engram sounds completely different from their earlier old school black metal. Its crisply produced and has a lot of songs played at the same fairly fast tempo. It sounds impressive for a couple listens but I never went back to it but I am glad it is in my collection. Their Drawing down the Moon album of 1993 is a masterpiece and I would recommend that first.