BENIGHTED - "PSYCHOSE" (ADIPOCERE)
I usually do some research when I review an album. That way I attempt to come across rather more knowledgeable than I really am. Searching the Internet allows for interesting snippets of information to be unearthed, such as previous band membership, origins of an elusive cover song, that kind of thing. Not so with Benighted, the "brutal death black" band from France. Had I wanted information on the American band of the same name, I would have had no problem. I even discovered a Croatian band called Benighted. To make things extra confusing, those two others bands both play black metal. Thankfully the French Benighted play "brutal death black" metal - you can trust the French PR people to create unique genre descriptions at the flick of a switch. Makes me think back to the days of old when I used to receive Holy Records bios, and had a really good time with those...but that's another story altogether.
Benighted from France play death metal primarily, with totally insane drumming (sometimes at helicopter rotor speeds) and a grunt that is both deep and primordial. The occasional scream I guess causes the 'black' ingredient of the genre description. It's not that major, however.
Although I usually start off reviews of bad albums with the kind of intro I've used just now, "Psychose" (not an actual English word, I suspect they meant "Psychosis" but you never know), Benighted have certainly delivered the goods like they ought to. The album sounds brutal, it sounds right. Some of the lyrics are in French, most of them are in English. The album boasts eleven immaculate death metal tracks, very extreme, with a bit of black metal thrown in. There's one acoustic ditty ("Internal Sufferings") which I think was included just to make the following track, "Claustrophobia", so much more of a death metal home run hitter. Most interesting track is "Feasting on the Disinterred Corpse", which amidst genuine death metal holocaust features a violin used to good effect (and, come on guys, let's be honest, this is a very cool title obviously :-). To compensate, however, there's a total rock-suckingly bad bonus track in the shape of the industrially influenced "Slay the Benighted". An experiment, I suppose, but not a successful one. Still, that leaves 12 tracks that do rule.
RK
Written June 2002