…And They Did It Again: Lord Fascinator and Behemoth
Our Favourite Records Right Now
Profet's Chief Ideologue Filip Lindström writes dearly about the two best new records you can bless your ears with at the moment.
From old fascinations to new ones, my go-to listens at the moment (when I’m not back in the deepest pits of my reoccurring Boogaloo obsession ) are the latest records of Fascinator, »Water Sign«, and Behemoth, »I Loved You At Your Darkest«. The dashingly dapper Lord Fascinator, fashionable frontman and frontal brain of Fascinator, appeared twice in Profet last year, in the articles »Loud Fascination for Lord Fascinator« parts I and II , of which the latter was an interview with the man himself. In our conversation dating a year back, we discussed a new Fascinator album (as well as Turkish psych rock and Swedish fusion jazz) that the Lord claimed would take a leap from his previous gives.
What ended up as »Water Sign« is a whole other story than his two year old solo debut »Man«, both still being qualitative bodies of work from a man with a gold mine’s worth of quirkiness hidden beneath his flow of blond hair. This new song collection has taken baby steps away from being perceived as novelty, which for example His Lordship’s magical major dance off hit song »Oh, Bukkake« off of »Man« didn’t. While his first album had its feet grounded in the present, »Water Sign« also leaps back into the 90’s, re-living the hazy space phase of Primal Scream’s drug fuelled »Vanishing Point« era – making me want a dub reggae remix version of »Water Sign« in its entirety, just like the Scream did on »Echo Dek«. For me as a devoted Ninetyphile, this look-back to those delicious corners of 90’s pop music is a game changer if there ever was one, especially when performed by the Lord himself draped in a curtain matching the wallpaper behind him. Luckily, his videos still feature dancing people dressed up as food items, in case you wondered.
Surely, Lord Fascinator’s suavely substance-friendly sound is a fresh counterpart to my other most played record during the last few months, Polish Black Metal group Behemoth’s »I Loved You At Your Darkest«. Nergal and the boys have not only started sporting a new look beginning with their previous release »The Satanist« - veiled faces and crowned heads - they have also gradually matured their Black Metal blasting. Behemoth have tweaked the genre for every record they’ve made, allowing me to catch different influences throughout the span of their recording career.
During the Nu-Metal days of the early 2000’s, I’d hear a bit of Slipknot’s Joey Jordison’s style in Behemoth’s Inferno’s playing, which is now no longer audible. Of course Behemoth have outlived the fragile Nu-Metal phenomenon, and are still reinventing themselves time and again. In »A Thousand Years Have Passed« , an interview by Profet’s Ronni Arturo, Draakh Kimera from Swedish Black Metal group Mörk Gryning said he thought there is no way of making »modern« music, especially not Black Metal, but I think both Behemoth and Sweden’s darkest Black Metal stars Watain are modernizing the genre further and further. Some might say it’s an act of mainstreaming the music, since the development attracts new fans, but it’s never on the account of the realness of it. Behemoth are as vicious and blasphemous as ever, even more now when Nergal’s intellect shines through to a further extent.
»I Loved You At Your Darkest« is heightened by dynamism, something I’ve missed in some of Behemoth’s earlier work. Inferno lives up to his moniker indeed, but he doesn’t necessarily blast away on the same beat throughout the entire album like he has done in the past. In »Angelvs XIII«, he intertwines Jazz with his stylistic tornado of mind-splitting hits, framing the song in a very enjoyable context. Behemoth (and Watain) leads Black Metal toward the future, and those unable to see that are bigoted beyond their own perception.
Best Tracks:
Fascinator - »Your Money, It’s Ugly«
Behemoth - »Bartzabel«