LIVE REVIEW: BEHEMOTH + NIDHOGG AT THE METRO, SYDNEY. FEBRUARY 20, 2026
by BRIAN GIFFIN
BEHEMOTH unleashed 35 years of extremity onto a sold-out Sydney crowd this evening with a furious spectacle and perhaps the best sound ever delivered at this venue.
Without the flame throwers and somewhat less of the theatrics of their last Australian visit, a leaner, stripped down Behemoth bent the audience to their will with just the fury of their performance.
The heat was oppressive as the punters squeezed into the place like black-clad and corpse-painted sardines, but the band didn’t seem to be feeling the effects of the venue’s air-conditioning issues at all.
Taking to the stage with “The Shadow Elite”, Nergal and his cohorts beset the Metro like a demonic horde. The intense heaviness and relentlessness of their delivery was both incredible and, given the atmosphere of the room, almost exhausting.
On stage, the atmospherics create a different feel, imposing, ritualistic. Inferno’s gigantic kit looms over the room, his effortless, almost casual handling of it seems at odds with Behemoth’s brutal onslaught. Giant bassist Orion’s hearty back-ups give further depth to Nergal’s fiendish howls. For his part, the frontman switches out a costume or two during the set as he prowls the stage, handing down blasphemous benedictions that defy and attack organised religion – “Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer”, “Ecclesia Diabolica Catholica”.
“The Shit ov God” stirs the masses into a roof-raising chorus of voices as Behemoth’s unabated ferocity becomes almost mesmerising. Breaks are few, but late in the set Nergal takes the opportunity to express his delight and surprise that Behemoth continues to absorb new fans. Then, as a band that has always paid allegiance to its influences, they swept into a version of “The Return of Darkness and Evil” that threatened to raise Quorthon from the grave, a highlight that seemed to carry the crowd through until the close of the main set. Returning for a single song encore of “O Father O Satan O Sun!” that managed to extract more sweaty allegiance from the crowd, Behemoth ended the night as they had begun – with seemingly unconquerable power and stamina.
Earlier, fellow Poles Nidhogg proved their worthiness as an opening act for such a colossus with a set of sweeping black metal again enhanced by a clarity of sound unusual for the Metro.
Nidhogg’s show is also ritualistic in nature, with his band appearing in various guises from shrouded faces to wide-brimmed hats, throwing poses and wielding their instruments. The gig goes from moments of theatre as he dons a crown of thorns and drinks from a chalice of blood, to one of pathos, dedicating a song to his recently-deceased dog. Keeping with the Bathory worship-theme, at least one of the songs drew heavily from their early catalogue while others came close to black n’ roll as Nidhogg declared a love of dancing and joined the crowd at the barrier. For their final song, the singer finished a long rant about the unlikelihood of peace in the Ukraine-Russia war by going in to an unexpected but very well appreciated cover of Sepultura’s “Territory”.
It was a good start to a night of crushing Satanic entertainment. Let’s hope it can be revisited again sooner rather than later.
