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Metal Hammer Presents... Subterranea recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Adam "Nergal" Darski of Polish extreme metallers BEHEMOTH. You can listen to the chat in two parts below.

BEHEMOTH will release its ninth full-length studio album, "Evangelion", on August 7 in Europe via Nuclear Blast Records and August 11 in North America through Metal Blade. The CD was mixed at Miloco Studios in London, England by Colin Richardson, who has previously worked with MACHINE HEAD, SLIPKNOT, NAPALM DEATH and BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE, among many others.

Check out the cover artwork below.

Commented Nergal (guitar, vocals): "'Evangelion' combines a pure art form with a direct message. It was also important for us to ensure that the graphical presentation did justice to the record. Again, we have worked with Tomasz Danilowicz, who has created his best illustration yet for BEHEMOTH. The picture is of The Great Harlot of Babylon riding the seven-headed beast. Saints bow before her in worship whilst the tablets of the Ten Commandments lie broken at her feet. It represents our vision and the interpretation of the New Testament parable where the 'Whore of Babylon' is a symbol of rebellion and resistance against God. I am fascinated by stories whose source lies in the Bible and we have used biblical symbolism, coupled with my own experience and outlook, in our lyrics or on the covers of previous BEHEMOTH records. I love to juggle with meanings and play around with symbolism which is exactly what I have done in this case. The main character of our new cover is an archetype of disobedience, individualism, self-determination and a free, unfettered will — these are universal keywords which are typical and crucial in understanding the character of our works, life as a whole and the true nature of man."

Nergal previously stated about the new material, "I must confess that I'm way more excited about this record than I was for [2007's] 'The Apostasy'. It's probably the whole label situation that we had to deal back then, Inferno's injury that caused crazy deadlines that completely drained the energy out of my system… I even started treating that album as unwanted child. Weird, because from time perspective, it's a great one. This time though everything was planned much in advanced. I found time to live my life, get some energy back, get inspired and so on… When we met in October it was obvious that all of us were really hungry for making new music. It's definitely 100% BEHEMOTH. I would risk saying that we do have our own style but it's still improving, evolving in different directions every time we approach new project. Most of the songs are the really fast, technical and intense, at the same time there's a lot of diversity. There's even a very slow, massive song that's probably the most epic tracks in BEHEMOTH's history. Everything sounds more serious and…dangerous (I love that word, ha ha). There's probably more sinister vibe in our music this time too."

BEHEMOTH has been confirmed for the second annual Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, set to take place this summer. The band will perform on the Hot Topic stage alongside CANNIBAL CORPSE, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, JOB FOR A COWBOY and WHITECHAPEL on over 25 dates.

Nergal interview Part 1:



Nergal interview Part 2: