Bethlehem
Dark Metal

Release Date: 1994 | Tracklist

Legend has it that a young child built a satanic altar in their bedroom after hearing one of Bethlehem’s early demos. On the surface, Bethlehem’s music may seem like a glorification of suffering and strife, brimming with the occult – but this isn’t entirely accurate. “Dark Metal” is rooted in a strong ethos of resistance to evil, serving as a collective release from suffering and strife. Cleverly hidden somewhere within the irreligious song titles, macabre atmosphere, and menacing heaviness, there’s a tenderness waiting to be discovered by those with a patient and discerning ear.

Founding member Jürgen Bartsch describes how the band set this artistic intention early on in their career, using music to destroy the darkness in their lives before it consumed them:

Basically four people came together, of such a kind that they all deeply were buried into something really dark, like living in a huge black hole. With no way out, no options or possibilities. Complete darkness, mental darkness. So the only chance to not follow the circumstances was to destroy darkness with music and though this was done instinctively, I believe today that the creation of a band like Bethlehem was the only chance to save our all lives. Not as a therapy or so, coz the therapy to that time were cigarettes and alcohol, more a promising path of light, completely born in the subconscious. We never discussed things like that but we all wanted to give it a name. Do remember this one rehearsal, shortly before we started recording our first demo, when suddenly our singer said: “‘the music is not evil, but it is dark.’ We all looked at each other and we knew it, that we exclusively play 'dark metal' and nothing else.

With this mission of dark metal established, Bethlehem released their album of the same name in 1994, blending an early style of death-doom with elements of black metal to tremendous result. Coupled with a unique, personal exploration of themes like melancholy, madness, sickness, and death, and overlaid by a strong anti-religious sentiment, this fusion-genre helped lay the groundwork for the depressive suicidal black metal movement, which ultimately subsumed the more niche genre of dark metal.

But where DSBM evolved to be claustrophobic and bleak, the music on “Dark Metal,” while distinctly lo-fi, is grand and layered. Even with its chaotic, thrashing moments, the whole record is permeated by elegance and an uncanny smoothness. Through frequent mood and tempo shifts, Bethlehem create a labyrinthine musical experience where songs unfurl like gnarled, spiraling tree branches. Each clang of the ride cymbal sounds like it could cut through the veil separating our world from the next. Guitar tones sizzle and drone like the purest electricity. The quiet moments punctuated by clean monologues and synthesizers make time itself feel frozen. The narrator’s despondency throughout the album is incredibly powerful, further enveloping the listener in darkness even after it seemed unimaginable to sink any deeper into the abyss.

Certainly, the anti-religious themes here cannot be ignored [“Lucifer's vengeance is here / Sons of Satan born in a fire / And your ***ing death is clear”], but it’s essential to read between the lines. While the members of Bethlehem are unlikely to be secret Christians trolling their fanbase, it’s equally unlikely that they actually worship the devil. Lyrics like this stand as symbols of suffering and evil in the world, and serve to acknowledge the potency of those qualities rather than shrink away and hide from them, making them a great example of the pop-psych concept “name it to tame it.” So when Andreas Classen shrieks that Lucifer’s vengeance is here, it’s a recognition of evil, not a submission to it.

Under this lens, it seems likely that the kid who built the satanic altar had issues with attention rather than possession. The purpose of dark metal is to defy evil, not bow to it. As psychologist Dan Siegel once said: If we can see the emotion, we do not have to be the emotion. How comforting that music this dark can also be a source of light. Perhaps by welcoming us to the slaughter, Bethlehem invite us to be curious about how we deal with the darkness in our own lives.

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4 excellent

Rank: #61 for 1994