Band:	Behemoth
Album:	A Forest
Style:	Blackened death metal
Release date:	May 29, 2020
A review by:	nikarg

01. A Forest [The Cure cover] [feat. Niklas Kvarforth]
02. A Forest [The Cure cover] [live]
03. Shadows Ov Ea Cast Upon Golgotha
04. Evoe

In the process of promoting A Forest, Nergal said that "covering music outside of metal is a challenge - covering legendary music is an even greater challenge... a lot of bands try it and a lot of bands fail".

This is a challenge in which Behemoth failed miserably.

I do not miss the old brutality of Behemoth. In fact, the last two albums by the band are the ones I enjoy the most from their entire career and I cannot say that I was surprised that they decided to do this cover. The Cure's "A Forest" is an iconic song, a gothic / post-punk anthem that just turned 40 years old, but it is not the first time a metal band covers it. Carpathian Forest, for example, successfully recreated the claustrophobic and dark atmosphere of the song, and Waltari re-imagined it with a more punk rock attitude.

Here though, we get an overproduced, overpolished, and lifeless version of it, with additional unbearable cringe courtesy of Niklas Kvarforth. And as much as I love his voice on the Shining songs, he should just stop doing these covers; the take on Placebo's "In The Cold Light Of Morning" featured in X - Varg Utan Flock was bad, but his performance on this one is just embarrassing. To be fair to the cover as a whole, the music is not too bad and the bass in particular sounds really meaty, but overall it feels bland and the forced vocals make it sound like a caricature of the original. The live version is just too ridiculous for words; it comes with a video of Kvarforth raising his middle finger and screaming 'Fuck you, all' to a completely unresponsive crowd, and the video also shows him at some point having his hand deep inside his trousers and holding his dick while rest of the band is performing. Wow, so edgy.

"A Forest" does not deserve to be treated like this by posers.

I don't know whether the other two tracks are leftovers from ILYAYD or if they were written and recorded especially for this EP, but I am very happy they exist because they served me well in my effort to wash my ears from the atrocity that preceded them. "Shadows Ov Ea Cast Upon Golgotha" sees Behemoth embracing d-beat, which is really cool in my book, and "Evoe" is undoubtedly the standout track, 'embellishing' the band's familiar brand of blackened death metal with a very welcome Enslaved vibe. It could be the fact that I am getting older, but I do like the road they are taking, incorporating various influences, focusing on atmosphere, and taking it down a notch in brutality. I guess it's inevitable anyway, because Nergal is getting older too.

To summarise, the studio version of "A Forest" is plain bad (4), the live version of it is hideous and disgraceful on every level (1), "Shadows Ov Ea Cast Upon Golgotha" is a good song that I wouldn't mind it being part of an album (7) and "Evoe" is almost excellent (8). Hence, the EP gets a 5.

"Aether above
Black Earth below"