Behexen (FIN) – Beyond The Four Gates DCD

Black Metal

Truly titled, this massive double-disc collection conveniently compiles the original three BEHEXEN demos and the preceding Lords of the Left Hand one, making for over an hour and a half of ancient black metal music. Lords of the Left Hand’s lone demo, Reality is in Evil…, leads off Beyond the Four Gates, and even back then, the foundation for the first era of BEHEXEN – which culminated in (and concluded with) Rituale Satanum – was in place, all hulking plod and clanging cold guitars. Following on the first disc is BEHEXEN’s first official demo, Eternal Realm. Here, the cold clang is suffused with more energy and, more crucially, medieval synths: a poignant snapshot of 1997 indeed. From those sessions is included a cover of Rotting Christ’s “Sign of Evil Existence.” Come 1998’s Blessed Be the Darkness demo, BEHEXEN would begin showing signs of the sound that would come to define that first era. Colder, crueler, faster, and fueled by founding frontman Torog’s increasingly inhuman throat, this demo presciently forecasted the filthy & furious idiom of Finnish black metal that would bloom during the looming new millennium.