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Behemoth
November 19 at The Marquee Club
Since this all-ages show started an hour before the advertised time, a number of people missed Halifax’s mighty Hellacaust. Burning Moon played a fantastic, too brief 15-minute set. They’re highly technical without being cold, atmospheric without being Viking drama queens. NecronomicoN brought extreme noise from Montreal — not to mention wind machines! I stood near vocalist Rob “The Witch,” hypnotized by the mad swirl of hair as much as the rest of the crowd was hypnotized by their tight-as-a-duck’s-ass — but much more evil — set. Poland’s Behemoth, former black metal gods who lean toward death metal now (to the displeasure of some fans), did not disappoint. The theatrics were there — corpse makeup, spiky leg accessories and singer Nergal’s Hellraiser-like outfit. The insanely fast double-kick-drum action, a signature of the genre, was there. By set’s end, Behemoth had younger crowd members pumping fists in unison to Nergal’s bark-like commands. Older metalheads, who remember when one could detect in the vocals exactly what Satan is up to, weren’t quite as convinced.