Since there aren�t many live recordings of Finnish black metal demons Beherit back in their early days, fanatics like myself have to be pretty forgiving when it comes to the live documents of the band that we do manage to find, especially when it�s as old as this. After years of subjecting myself to some truly atrocious sounding bootlegs, someone has finally put together a live Beherit album that�s at least as listenable as a decent soundboard tape, and since Beherit are one of my all-time favorite black metal bands, I found this an enjoyable enough blast of their early material in a live setting, which from the sounds of this set seems like it might have been pretty boisterous.
This recent release from the obscure Metal Fighter label is touted as the "first official live album" from Beherit, but the sound quality on this disc is bootleg-grade at best, sounding like it was probably recorded from the audience on a halfway operational cassette deck. All things considered, though, it's a listenable, burly blast of filthy, Christ-molesting black metal mayhem from Beherit that was captured in Finland in 1991, the band ripping through eleven tracks that are mainly drawn from their Dawn Of Satan's Millenium 7" and the Drawing Down The Moon album (including classic filth like "Through Angels of the Gods", "Sadomatic Rites", "Nocturnal Evil", "Black Arts", "Gates of Nanna", "Werewolf Semen and Blood", "Beast of Damnation", "Demoniac", and "Witchcraft") ; I've never heard a live recording of Beherit performing anything from Drawing Down The Moon prior to this, so that alone made me want to pick this disc up. Nuclear Holocausto's vocals are gaseous and ghastly, and the performance is drenched in a heavy layer of filth and alcohol and vomit, with plenty of drunken audience noise bleeding into the breaks between the songs captured in this ultra-murky, cavernous live recording, but it's actually fairly heavy sounding for a boot-quality recording. Of interest primarily to hardcore Beherit fans, completists, and terminal necro junkies.