Someone at Century Media has some balls releasing Behemoth’s newest opus on the same day as Nile’s Ithyphallic, especially considering Nile started to surface as a reference for Behemoth’s last, slightly disappointing effort, Demigod. Well, Century Media must have known what they had here-an album that better than Demigod as almost as good as the watershed album, Zos Kia Cultus.

With a less compressed and slightly less layered production (The Daniel Bergstrand mix helps), The Apostasy sounds less forced then Demigod and while the Middle Eastern elements that surface do still hint of Nile at times (i.e. the start of “Kriegsphilosophie”, “Arcana Hereticae” or any moment where the band amps up the speed), the increased use of dramatic choirs and orchestration (i.e standouts “Slaying the Prophets of Isa”, “Prometherion”, “At The Left Hand Ov God”) in well placed spurts rounds out Behemoth’s already impressive death metal sound perfectly.

Nergal is still Nergal plying his deep bellow and esoteric lyrics amid typically hefty and almost Romanic/militaristic riffs. The song writing seems a bit tighter, consistent and less formulaic than Demigod, but still lacks that killer track like “Zos Kia Cultus” or “Here and Beyond”. However, the three already mentioned standout tracks are close as are “Libertheme”, the short sharp burst of “Pazuzu” and closer “Christgrinding Avenue”. There is a slight misstep though as the publicized appearance of Nevermore’s Warrel Dane for “Inner Sanctum” brings the album to a screeching halt in its attempt to be a moody epic.

Ultimately, this is a Behemoth album and will deter or please fans thusly. Personally, I actually prefer this more than Nile’s Ithyphallic and is surely going to be one of 2007’s most lauded death metal releases, and rightly so.

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