Behemoth Collection

No other metal band has such a long and storied history of steadfastly defying convention as BEHEMOTH. These Polish hellraisers, led by Adam Darski, aka Nergal, have done much more than just lay the groundwork for Poland to become a legendary extreme metal powerhouse; they've evolved into the epitome of defiance, individuality, and fearless self-expression that brought them into conflict with the likes of the mainstream press and the Polish government. The latter filed criminal charges against them for defacing a bible and printing the nation's coat of arms on a T-shirt.

Behemoth was formed in 1991 in the city of Gdańsk. The group was originally a trio with Nergal (guitar and vocals), Baal (drums), and Desecrator (guitar). The band gradually transitioned from traditional black metal into death metal and has since positioned itself somewhere in the middle of the two.

Over the course of their decades-long career, the band's members have changed several times. Only Nergal, the band's original singer and guitarist, has stayed and was present in every album. Nergal has been at the helm of Behemoth since the band's inception; he has written the majority of their music and has a hand in almost all of their performances.

Today, Behemoth are made up of Adam "Nergal" Darski (lead vocals and guitar), Zbigniew "Inferno" Promiński (drums), Tomasz "Orion" Wróblewski (bass and backing vocals), and Patryk "Seth" Sztyber (guitar and backing vocals).

For Behemoth, the breakthrough came with the release of their demo, ...From the Pagan Vastlands, in 1994. And one year later, they released their first full-length album, Sventevith, gaining critical acclaim from the metal underground scene, which helped propel Behemoth's career across Europe.

With the release of Satanica in 1999, the band gained a larger fan base among the black metal community. However, the album would also mark the end of the group as a trio. Behemoth's first album of the twenty-first century, Thelema.6, featured a four-piece lineup for the first time in the band's history, with new members Novy (bass) and Havoc (guitar) joining longtime members Nergal and Inferno. Thelma.6 is the first of the band’s albums to be distributed worldwide.

To date, Behemoth has put out a total of fifteen studio albums. Two of their most recent releases were in 2018 and 2022.

The group's 2018 album, I Loved You at Your Darkest, is a crushing salvo of black metal majesty, complete with hellish riffs, thundering drum cannonades, and soaring liturgical choirs reminiscent of classic horror films. Later, in 2022, while taking a break from touring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they released the heavy but detailed Opvs Contra Natvram—a fitting soundtrack to these strange and troubled times.