БѢСЪ: “Ѿ ЛУКÁВАГѠ”

(Here we present Didrik Mešiček‘s enthusiastic review of the just-released second album by the Russian black metal band Бѣсъ.)

Well, that’s a lot of signs we’ve not seen before, isn’t it? It turns out this is some sort of old Russian Cyrillic (possibly Old Church Slavonic?) that even I, as a Slav who can generally read Cyrillic, can’t decipher. (I found out after writing this intro that the band translates the album title to “Ov the Devil”.)

Behind the name hides a Moscow-based black metal band, founded as recently as 2019. I first noticed them with their debut album, Кощунства (2020) which already had some really cool tracks and ended up just missing my top 20 list that year. Ѿ Лукáвагѡ was released on October 27th independently.

Firstly, let’s get into the name of the band – Бѣсъ, which can be transliterated as Bes, is a demon in Slavic mythology akin to pretty traditional Christian demons, while the actual word “bes” means rage or wrath in some Slavic languages. It turns out this is the perfect word to describe the band’s sound as well.

Church bells open the album in the intro, but the playing becomes distorted and chaotic quickly before a man growls his intentions – to trample the body of Jesus and burn all temples to dust.

“Satana, Satana!” opens the first song proper, “Лѧ́дꙋ,” and it’s absolutely delightful madness. The vocals come off as possessed and unhinged and it’s immediately one of the few instances where Satanic black metal actually sounds… evil? In the chorus the song works beautifully as the interchanging chanting of “Satana!” and the increasingly angrier vocalisations from Blazen work together to create a true aura of blasphemy.

“Сма́гомъ вра́жꙋ, кро́вїю и́льщꙋ” continues with the album’s very fast and ferocious tempo, but adds a tiny bit of a Slavic folk element in the base of its sound while also being very catchy and incredibly dancey for black metal – I genuinely cannot be still while listening to this track, which is something that can also be said for the chorus of the next track of the album -”Вкꙋси́те и҆ ѡ҆брѧ́щете!,” a piece that also showcases the most interesting guitar work in the album up to this point.

The next song begins with a very liturgic sound that would definitely fit a Batushka track and seems to be talking about the rising of Christ with spoken word both in Greek and Latin – only for the idea to quickly be cast aside by the band’s deranged Satanistic onslaught. I can actually imagine a sermon being conducted, which is then invaded by forces of Satan and that makes me happy. In a brutal, black metal way, of course. Rather surprisingly, the song features some pretty classic heavy metal guitar work in the latter half before the chorus is repeated once more and blast beats are added again.

The band does a good job of making sure all the instruments are involved well enough, and while the album is clearly driven mostly by the vocals, it never feels like the vocalist is the only star, as it might do with some more mainstream bands. Still, I can see how some people who prefer their black metal more atmospheric or meditative won’t really appreciate the ferociousness of “Ѿ Лукáвагѡ.” However, “Юро́дствїе” (or “Foolishness,” if Google can be believed) definitely has a bit of a feeling of some slower, melodic Nordic black metal, the kind that feels appropriate to listen to when walking through the snowy forests of Norway.

Despite nearing its end the album does not let off and actually presents one of my favourites pieces of the album in – ”Свѧтохꙋ́льство” (Google tells me this means “sacredness,” but due to cognates of the word in other Slavic languages I think this is closer to “hypocrisy” – literally “to fake holiness”). In the ritualistic beginning, the same phrase is repeated thrice followed by a gong and then the song truly begins, and while the band’s basic sound doesn’t really stray much throughout the album they manage to add unique personality to each song, in this case with the words “Crucify him!” in Hebrew that somehow manages to make the words more blasphemous than they usually would be.

With “Льды̀ по́мнѧтъ” the band showcases a more serious side (Satanism, while fun, is also pretty cringe) of their writing as the lyricism is genuinely lovely and paints a nice story and the band even add some female cleans that fit very well and counteract the madness of the growls in a soothing way. A bit more female energy is added with the final track as a woman seems to be talking about some sort of an Antichrist figure that is her child which the band follows with calls of “слався!” (Glory!) and thus finishes this religious war victorious.

Every year I look ahead to see which of my favourite bands will be releasing new material and then, almost as a rule, it turns out I get more excited by these little gems that I happen to stumble upon. Ѿ Лукáвагѡ is an absolute delight of an album that ticks all the boxes I want ticked from black metal at this point in my metal journey. It’s insanely aggressive, utterly deranged, yet also just fun and oddly thought-provoking, certainly more so than we’re used to from the usual odes to Satan.

I’m also absolutely in love with the band’s artwork of the band members – notice the vocalist reading from a book titled “истина” (truth). Of course, as a linguist, I really enjoy the usage of several languages too, and against all odds, this is a record that will be placed very highly in my list of the best releases from 2023.

Lineup:
Blazen – vocals
Chur – bass
Nehay – drums
Iskr – guitars
Nespyat – guitars

https://biese.bandcamp.com/album/ov-the-devil
https://www.facebook.com/besmetal/