Apo! Pantoz! Kakodaimonoz! Hearing this call live was a dream for years for Bulgarian extreme metal fans and finally, after a long time of hopes and two hours of waiting under the rain, on May 30, 2007 it sounded in the Black Box Club in Sofia in front of a bit more than 300 people.

It seems as if Polish bands have no luck in crossing the Serbian-Bulgarian border. Behemoth were held there quite w hile, and the concert began with a delay of more than 2 hours.

First, a bit after 9 p.m., the crowd welcomed the local black metal scene leaders, Korozy. The band appeared on stage for the first time in more than a year's absence, and despite the lack of a keyboard player they nailed hard four songs and showed why our best extreme music comes mainly from their hometown of Burgas.

Then the time came to witness the show by the Greeks Suicidal Angels, familiar to those who visited Rotting Christ's concert in Sofia in April 2007. They offered about an hour of old-school thrash metal like they were not in Bulgaria in 2007, but somewhere in the Bay Area clubs two decades ago. At the end they forged a couple of Slayer cuts and left under the applauses of the audience.

Afterwards the wait and the compulsory soundcheck came along. Then the lights went off, the well-known intro sounded, and on the stage came up the titans Behemoth - with crash, thunder and killing looks. Hand on heart I can say that such a band has never played here before. The sound was brilliant, and the four Polish appeared in front of us just the way we know them from album covers, videos and pictures - steady, with corpsepaint, ominous, emanating might with their own appearance. And finally, the music...

One after the other the black hymns of Behemoth overflowed. We were ready for sound terror and punches from the band, but they hit us with a fuckin' kick in the chest! The lights, the vision, the aggression, the speed, the density of the compositions, the sound in the hall - all of these, unleashed for about 70 minutes, were like a recipe for liquefying of brains. Nergal, Orion, Seth and Inferno were like out-of-hell creatures that had come to take as many souls as possible. Their old black metal classics sounded great live, and the new songs were as impacting as they are on the CDs.

After "Demigod" Behemoth loaded their musical weapons and shot us with batters like "Antichristian Phenomenon", "From the Pagan Vastlands", "Conquer All" and the smashing "Christians to the Lions". There was also a drum solo by the machine called Inferno, and Nergal constantly demonstrated his pleasure from the show and repeated they should have played in Bulgaria long ago, and that they will return every time they tour.

The guys also presented two songs off their forthcoming album, "The Apostasy" - "Prometherion", presented on the official OzzFest website, and the quick-firing "Christgrinder Avenue". Sweat, beer, water, hairs and bodies didn't cease to fuse in one avalanche mass, and "Decade of Therion" had the effect of a detonator to the yet mindless crowd.

A few songs more, the cover version of "I Got Erection" by the Norse punks Turbonegro and the old classic "Pure Evil and Hate" and... Everything came to an end. Behemoth came and "conquered all".

Words: Ivaylo Alexandrov

Photos: Nicki Vassilev / Tangra Mega Rock

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