In Absentia Dei

Over the course of the pandemic, many bands did livestream performances to satiate their fans—and themselves—during the lengthy period when venues were shuttered. For the most part, Behemoth frontman Adam “Nergal” Darski wasn’t impressed with what he saw. “I wasn’t really attracted by any of the streams that were out there,” the distinguished extreme-metal musician tells Apple Music. “We knew that if Behemoth was going to pull something like that out, it must be absolutely mind-blowing and unmatched. It may sound arrogant of me, but it’s like, ‘Go big or go home.’ That’s my life’s maxim, and I stick to it.” Cut to the abandoned church in the band’s native Poland where Behemoth shot their video for the song “Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel” almost a decade ago. “It’s an ex-evangelical church that was built over a hundred years ago on lands that are now Poland but used to be Germany,” Nergal explains. “It was no longer in use after World War II.” It was in this gothic setting that Behemoth performed their double live set *In Absentia Dei* with a vivid horror-movie atmosphere of fog, fire, and blasphemy captured on video by the crack production team at Grupa 13. “*In Absentia Dei* was unprecedented,” Nergal offers. “It was a shitload of work, but we raised the bar for livestreams real high.” **“Evoe”** “We opened the set with this because we wanted to challenge ourselves. We wanted to bring something fresh and new. It came off the EP \[*A Forest*\], released shortly before we did the live set, so I think it came out as a big surprise, like, ‘Shit. They’re opening with a song that they’ve never played live!’ Maybe this is the only time we’ll ever play that, so that also makes it quite special.” **“Prometherion”** “This is off *The Apostasy*, maybe the most technically challenging record we’ve ever created. I don’t think I could pull off all that shredding and fast guitars anymore. I don’t want to go there, but especially if you talk to our drummer—he’s like, ‘Please, slow down.’ When you listen to ‘Prometherion’ live and then you go back to the record, on the record it’s just played way faster. But faster doesn’t mean it’s better. Sometimes it’s better to slow down and find the groove.” **“Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel”** “This is a modern classic. I’m very happy with this song, and it works so well live. We started playing it live during festivals before *The Satanist* album was even out, and I remember people’s reaction to that song. There was a lot of confusion in the beginning, because it starts out very slowly and then speeds up the pace before it just goes absolutely into a frenzy. It was like, ‘What the fuck did they just play?’ So, I was kind of disappointed back then because I was hoping people would get it right away. But now they do.” **“Conquer All”** “That’s one of our most-played songs. It’s a banger. Great groove. Thank you, Anthrax. That’s another story—I didn’t rip off Anthrax. But because I was an Anthrax fan when I was a kiddo, probably that was just somewhere in my musical DNA. When I recorded it, someone told me it sounds almost identical. When I revisited the back catalog of Anthrax, I’m like, ‘Fuck. Well, it does. Sorry for that.’ Overall, it’s a different song, but that sequence is quite identical, I must admit. But it was a coincidence. And now, instead of one good song, we have two.” **“Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer”** “I wrote the whole song from start to finish at home, without the band. I brought it to the rehearsal room when \[bassist\] Orion was on tour with Vesania, his band. It was just three of us—me, \[guitarist\] Seth, and \[drummer\] Inferno—and we wrapped it up within 40 minutes, tops. Because of that, I questioned the quality of the song. I said we would not put it on the record. Then I wrote the lyrics, and when I heard the final thing that we did in the studio, I knew it was going on the record because it’s a fucking monster of a song. It became one of people’s most favorite tracks, and I love playing this one live.” **“Ov Fire and the Void”** “This one is off *Evangelion*, and it’s another one of people’s favorites. It has a lot of hooks. There’s a great lead part played by Seth, our guitarist, and it has an awesome groove. It’s a great live track, too. When we deliver the full-on production with pyros and stuff—man, it gets hot on stage. It gets super sweaty. Just by saying those words now, I realize how much I miss touring.” **“Bartzabel”** “‘Bartzabel’ is not a ballad, but some people say this is the only ballad we ever wrote without wimping out. It’s still pretty dark and sinister. I really like this part where I step up on this booth onstage that we set on fire. There’s a big-ass figure of Jesus Christ, and then it just all ends up in flames. I’m standing there with a fucking Pope hat on my head, and it just gets so ritualistic. It gets so majestic. So, yeah, I’m a big fan of that one. Because it’s kind of slow and moody, it doesn’t drain you out. It has nice dynamics throughout.” **“O Father O Satan O Sun!”** “This song is strongly inspired by Aleister Crowley. It’s a natural-born closer, so it just became that song in the set. If you’re familiar with our discography, you see that every now and then we wrap up certain records with these big, majestic songs. They are kind of tailored for being the closing ones. ‘O Father’ is maybe the most epic of them all, but then again, wait and hear the new record sometime next year. I think we’re coming up with a big competition to ‘O Father.’ But I don’t think we can ever drop this one from the set.”

Starved of the spectacular, metal fans have had little choice but to embrace the era of live streamed events. Fortunately, our genre is far better suited to the idea than any other, and BEHEMOTH have proved themselves to be better equipped to raise the virtual roof than just about anyone else. Recor...