Concert review | Beherit created a metal fair that was out of this world

Beherit, Ääniwalli, 30.8.

When domestic black metal pioneer Beherit announced his first ever concert in Helsinki, it sold out the Ääniwall, which attracted a thousand people, in just a few hours.

The long wait and its release can be seen at the gig. People don’t know what they’re doing, and they don’t know how to stop yelling when they should be quiet and concentrate.

There is a reason for the charm. Founded in Rovaniemi in 1989, Beherit played its last official gig in Riihimäki Montu on August 21, 1992. It was followed by a 32-year hiatus until the band made a comeback: in January they played in Oulu, in April in Osaka in Japan and in June in Salzburg in Austria.

Exclusive or even a vague gig is in line with Beherit’s eccentric music.

Primus motor of the band Marko Laiho aka Nuclear Holocausto Vengeance grew up far from the genre wars and scandals of 1990s Norwegian black metal, and therefore came to create music that is out of this world.

Beherit became the black sheep of black metal, whose music combines, on the one hand, the primitive excitement of the genre pioneers of the 1980s, on the other hand, chillingly strange and stagnant atmospheric sections created with synthesizers and samples.

It fits the story that when the whole world’s subculture circles started buzzing about Beherit, Marko Laiho became a techno DJ and started making ambient-based music.

Over the gig, which starts with a minute-long electronic intro, quickly makes it clear that Beherit has not come to Helsinki to play a generic metal concert.

In contrast to Beherit’s contemporaries Mayhem’s Hellsinki Metal Festival gig a couple of weeks ago, Beherit is more introverted, more ritualistic and more unfinished on stage.

The band doesn’t put on a show and doesn’t try to “take over their audience”. It doesn’t try to rehash its past by slathering on pig’s blood or showing off its spiked bracelet arsenal.

Another difference from the past is that Laiho does not play guitar at the gig, but focuses on vocals and his sample pad. The guitar (and partly the vocals) has, among other things In Witchcraft playing the younger generation Juha Laine i.e. “Black Moon”.

Messing around with machines suits Laiho, who clearly doesn’t miss being the center of attention.

In the concert set and in between, there are plenty of cold, almost lifeless ambient interludes, during which you feel as if you are floating in oxygen-free space in space.

The band does not rush out of these spaces of stopping, which creates its own, alienating atmosphere for the gig.

Setting the mood in addition, Beherit gives a masterful example of his striking but versatile songwriting skills.

Jari Pirinen aka Sodomatic Slaughter’s super simple drumbeat driven The Gate of Nanna and wickedly groovy Sadomatic Rites show how a black metal band can be overbearing and scary even at a slower tempo.

From a Brazilian From the Sarcófago redolent Solomon’s Gate again reminds us how insane power a couple of properly placed power chords and pounding drums can have.

Its own chapter is a song drowned in Laiho’s effects, which throughout the show is just as strange as you are used to hearing on records. He alternately purrs, whispers, hisses, spells, shouts and chants, thus creating the impression of a robotic human being programmed into a satanic trance.

This is the best art: when it’s done well, original and convincing enough, it doesn’t need theatrical pop art to present it. The mood will come through – and you shouldn’t spoil it with a populist encore.