Behemoth

A Forest EP
(Metal Blade Records)
Release: May 29, 2020
by Scott Hefflon

Behemoth again taps the talents of Niklas Kvarforth from Shining for their blackened cover of The Cure’s ’80s classic, “A Forest.” The band is in top form and they scorch the forest, leveling all nuance and detail, and pave it over with thick, stinking tar. Fearsome and powerful? Yes. Moody and haunting, with spooky sparseness that you fill with your mind’s deepest fears? No. Robert Smith’s tragic, fragile vocals have been replaced by beastial roars and croaking that makes you wonder if the singer really needs to take a shit. Perhaps these are “pained” or “tortured” vocals to some, but most of the time they sound, well, ridiculous. A whisper would have been scarier. Or the pained sobs Dark Tranquilly does, or My Dying Bride used to. Or gurgling blood, or detached industrial monotone, but great metal roars or not, these guys just don’t sing very well. I like the screaming at trees and all the fire at the end of the video, but really, isn’t this just better produced silliness like the early black metal videos of dudes in face paint and leather wandering around the woods with broadswords and battle axes while on lunch break from their day jobs?

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