What could be behind – Behemoth – The Shit Ov God

 

The Polish extreme/black metal band has released their 13th studio album, The Shit Ov God, which came out on May 9, 2025, via Nuclear Blast.
The title track was already released in January and caused quite a stir with its provocative name.
The album contains eight songs and was recorded by Jens Bergen.

1. The Shadow Elite
2. Sowing Salt
3. The Shit Ov God
4. Luciferaeon
5. To Drown The Svn In Wine
6. Nomen Barbarum
7. O Venvs Come!
8. Avgvr (The Dread Vvltvre)

Behemoth has received a huge amount of criticism ever since its inception. You can love them or hate them, but it’s generally rare to come across someone who can pass by them without feeling something as a result. And in my opinion, that’s exactly their goal. After all, all publicity is publicity — both negative and positive.

Nergal described this album as a condensed embodiment, a declaration of the very essence of Behemoth. He deliberately chose this provocative title. When the song was released in January, even fans criticized the title heavily. At that time, Nergal spoke about how he doesn’t understand when the world became so prudish that you can’t say the word “shit,” and since when that word has caused such outrage.

The title is meant to draw attention to a critique of the world and society. Whether one agrees with it or not, it has achieved its goal: people have noticed it and are talking about it. Fans — and especially haters — have always closely followed them, particularly around album releases, but perhaps no album has generated this level of publicity before.

This being the 13th album is obviously no coincidence; there’s a reason they chose to release this album with such a title. The number thirteen is strongly connected to religion. As far as Nergal can be known — and through researching him — it becomes clear that both the man himself and what he allows the public to see are carefully controlled. What we know of him is far from the complete person; it is only what he chooses to show.

He has an extensive knowledge of both history and religion. This is not random mudslinging without underlying knowledge or substance. One can say about him — and about Behemoth as well — that it’s a business move, a kind of performance; of course, there is business involved, but Adam also criticizes Christianity in real life. We don’t know the exact reasons behind this, although I think part of those reasons isn’t that hard to figure out.

Nergal is a critical thinker, and this is no different when it comes to religion. He has spoken about the new album on several occasions, and each time he has called it the best and most fully realized Behemoth album. He has even said that if this were to be their last album, he would still die proud of it.

  

Let’s dig a little deeper into all of this and not focus only on the word shit itself but on how it is actually written: S.H.I.T. The letter T, shaped like an inverted cross, cuts through the letters S.H.I. What could these three letters mean? If we reverse them, we get I.H.S., which is the monogram of Jesus’ name, also used by the Jesuits: IHS, or Iesum Habemus Societas (“the humble society of Jesus”). This Jesuit symbol itself is nothing other than the exact mirror image of the symbol used by Adam — they have simply inverted it.

Even when looking at the lyrics of the album’s title track, we can also discover clear wordplay.

I for ingrate
E to eradicate
S for the scorn
U for useless
S for the shame
J for joyless
H to humiliate
S for thy son unloved

How does the song begin?
Eat my flesh, Drink my blood – Jesus’ blood and flesh are the sacred symbols of the Eucharist, in which the faithful symbolically consume the blood and flesh of Jesus.

Then another element appears, which also carries symbolic meaning:
You are the light ov the world.
I thrive in the dark.

Here it is clearly referring to God as the light, but in Nergal’s lyrics, light is mentioned very often.
God as light versus Lucifer as darkness?

If we look deeper into this, it quickly becomes clear that Lucifer originally means “light-bringer.” From the Latin words lux – light, and fero – to bring. Roman poets used it as an epithet for the planet Venus. And suddenly, there is another song title connection: O Venus, Come.

If we go even further, the name of the planet Venus in Hebrew is Ben-Sachar, or “Son of the Dawn.” This son is none other than Lucifer himself. This could even be a reference to the 2014 album The Satanist, since that record includes the song Ben-Sahar.
But we are far from reaching the end of the symbolism. We also have a song called O Venus, Come!

מְנֵא מְנֵא תְקֵל וּפַרְסִין (Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin) – an Aramaic biblical expression, meaning:

·         Mene – numbered

·         Tekel – weighed

·         Upharsin – divided

This inscription appeared on the wall at King Belshazzar’s feast. It is a divine prophecy predicting the fall of Babylon. God has numbered your days. You have been weighed and found wanting, and your kingdom has been divided, given to the Medes and Persians. That night, Belshazzar was killed, and the Persian army under Cyrus conquered Babylon, fulfilling Daniel’s prophecy.

Luciferianism views the human being as godlike and places emphasis on individual freedom, creativity, and pleasure. It is important to point out that Luciferianism is not the same as Satanism.

In this song, alongside Lucifer, Baphomet also appears. The phrase Lord of Gehinnom is mentioned as well. What is Gehinnom, and who is the Lord of Gehinnom? The lord of hell. Gehenna, meanwhile, refers to Hê-Hinnom, the valley near Jerusalem where idol worshippers sacrificed their children in fire.

The Shadow Elite opens with an ultrasonic heartbeat. However, what we can also identify in it as a symbol is the arrow. The golden arrow is a prayer named by Jesus, symbolizing that those who recite this prayer heal the wounds caused by malicious people.

Nomen Barbarvm — אַברקדברא — abracadabra is spoken four times in Nergal’s raspy voice. What exactly is abracadabra? A magical incantation, perhaps one of the oldest spells ever created and preserved. It derives from the Mesopotamian expression AB–BA–TAB–BA–RI, which was repeated during Sumerian religious practices.

So now let’s return — or perhaps shift — from religion back to the fact that we have an album that received a lot of criticism. But this piece isn’t only about that anymore; honestly, I’m not even sure what to call it at this point.

Sowing Salt and Lvciferaeon stand out to me because of their intense sound and their more complex musical structures.

The symbolism of sowing salt:
Mount Horeb, which is the same as Mount Sinai, is also called Moses’ Mountain. Here, the famous burning bush appeared, where God revealed Himself to Moses.
The appearing serpent and lion are both biblical symbols as well.

Typhon is a figure from Greek mythology. He is the offspring of Gaia and Tartaros himself. From the throat of each of his hundreds of snake heads comes a different terrifying sound: the bellow of a bull, the roar of a lion, the bark of a dog…

Two of my personal favorites on the album are the already much-mentioned Lvciferaeon and Avgvr (The Dread Vvltvre).

Avgvr really puts the finishing touch on the album for me and serves as a very strong closing track. It starts brutally strong and masterfully blends choral sections with tempo changes, showing that beyond provocation, the band is capable of real musical diversity.

The album closes in a musically very different way compared to all the tracks before it. Yet throughout the entire record, one can observe the alternation of melodies with varying intensity, complemented by Nergal’s performance — from deep growls through sharp, higher-pitched vocals, to spoken passages and chanting — creating a richly varied atmosphere across the album.

What I noticed at first is that the album is short — a total of 37 minutes and 55 seconds. I had to listen to it several times before it started to grow on me and before I could really pay attention to the lyrics as well. I still stand by the fact that people are free to criticize them; there will always be detractors. It’s also true that Adam enjoys overshooting the mark and pushing boundaries — not only those of the general public, but even those of the fans.

However, if we pay even a little attention to the lyrics, we are once again given a very serious critique of religion. In fact, this may well be the most uncompromisingly religion-critical album they have released so far.