Behemoth’s Blow Your Trumpet Gabriel – A Rite of Transformation and Power
This video will blow your mind
Yesterday, the Polish Death Metal band Behemoth released a new video for their song “Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel.” This song will appear on their next album “The Satanist,” which will be coming out in 2014. The album is currently available for pre-order. Nergal (the vocalist) said he was inspired in the making of this album by his battle with cancer (Metal Injection). There are few things more brutal than telling cancer “nope” and kicking its neoplasmic ass straight to hell.
Now let’s talk about the song above. First I would like to complement the bassist. Listen to the bass at 3:41 for example, I love that part! The bass wasn’t just like “Raaar brutal metalz jun jun jun jun,” it was the velvet wall between the trumpets, drums and guitar, a texture that gave the song definition, emotion and dynamics. In terms of the rest of the song, it of course is very reminiscent of Behemoth’s usual sound. But they did a great job, as usual, in amping up the brutality on this one. Makes me excited to listen to the rest of the album when it comes out.
The video itself is a masterpiece to be sure. I can’t give you a clear cut answer for what the video represents itself, but I have my own interpretation. In this video a girl goes through a journey and a transformation. She walks through a field and finds herself with a trio of “satanist priests?”
The most visually jarring part of the video is where the music picks up in intensity. After the girl drinks the ritual (wine?) she goes through a painful transformation. She starts vomiting blood, thorns pierce her body, her eyes become red with blood and she loses her hair.
As I mentioned earlier, Nergal states that he was inspired by his battle with cancer. What happens to a person when they battle cancer? They lose their hair, spend a lot of time vomiting – possibly vomiting blood – and of course go through mind wrenching pain. I think this girl’s transformation represents Nergal’s interpersonal battle with cancer. At the end of the painful transformation, the girl is something new – something unearthly. She is an angel or a demon, blowing Gabriel’s trumpet. She is more powerful than she was before, having overcome her barbaric rite.
Yet I see a meaning here that goes beyond a battle with cancer. Behold, there are religious images splashed throughout the video: a rosary, a crucifix, a Jewish menorah, a man sacrificing a lamb, etc. Remember, the album that this song is from is called “The Satanist.” Perhaps the girl’s battle represents The Satanist’s battle against all religions and ideologies. It is a battle against systems that attempt to control the mind and the soul. At the end, the new Satanist initiate is more powerful having overcome the religious restraints on her mind and does something that Christ speaks against – she blows her own horn. She is an entity onto herself, a primeval wolf in the forest, her own personal God. She proclaims herself as such as false religions crumble around her.
At least…that’s my interpretation. What’s yours?
This entry was posted on December 4, 2013 by Metalgaia. It was filed under Death Metal, Music, Satanism/Black Magic, The Dark Arts and was tagged with behemoth, blow your trumpet gabriel, interpretation, meaning, official video, rite, video.
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Metal Gaia 
I like your interpretation of this song, and her eating the paten and drinking the blood is i guess like going through chemotherapy. I guess fighting cancer is like a living hell, as fighting any chronic disease. I can make out most of the words and the song is too new to find the lyrics. If i were in a band i would be the bassist, lol.
December 4, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Thanks for posting this and thanks to BSSS for alerting me to it. I am not usually a fan of Death Metal (Satanic or otherwise) but I do like the power of this song. I especially like the video. I would agree with both versions of your interpretation of it. However it seems to me a good example of how Satanic imagery can easily be misinterpreted. I can imagine some people dismissing it as a glorification of horror and evil in which the innocent girl is corrupted by Satan.
December 8, 2013 at 7:53 am
Yes, definitely! I think a lot of people don’t really understand what Satanism is. To me, it seems that a majority of Satanists are ritualistic atheists who have a specific philosophy on life. To me, I understand it to be the opposite of Christianity in a lot of ways. Instead of humility, they believe in being proud of yourself, instead helping the poor and downtrodden, they believe in using your resources to help yourself and those you care about, instead of modesty they believe in exploring your lust and being open about sexuality, and instead of waiting for the treasures of heaven – they celebrate the treasures of this life. I don’t agree with all of it, but it’s interesting to read about.
December 8, 2013 at 4:25 pm
I’ll just be myself and you can stick whatever religion up your ass.
But if you wanna be my friend, then that’s cool too. Just don’t preach me.
-Satanism
December 17, 2013 at 6:25 pm
“She goes through a transformation and becomes much more powerful”
Well, from what I can see she was a young girl running through a nice field to where she stumbled upon some of the scariest looking motherfuckers on the planet. Said scary motherfuckers lead her to their rape dungeon. After preforming some mind control rituals via hypnosis they continued to torture the ever living shit out of her until she lost her mind.
“Ok, we have her in deep trance, what now?”
“Hey! Let’s squeeze her fuckin’ eyeballs out!”
“Well, shit. Now she’s all fucked up. Any ideas?”
“Here… Give that bitch a trumpet.”
Now she is reduced to walking around while blowing on a trumpet to some weird tempo trashy black metal. Damn, girl be looking like a traumatized mess, can’t even stand up straight by the end. Guess that was a fairly beneficial transformation. Whatever floats your boat I guess. Personally, I’m just glad that fox was there to walk around and look cool sometimes. He also saw a virgin’s cunt summon forth a snake, apparently.
Good song. Good video. Good review. Cheers.
December 17, 2013 at 6:23 pm
😀
*By the way, it was wolf, not fox.
September 19, 2015 at 11:46 am
This song really has much more Biblical meaning and innuendo in it than at first glance. Being an ex-Christian, I picked up on it. First of all, the song is told from Satan’s point of view. In Genesis, God says the seed of the woman will crush the serpents head, and the serpent will strike the seed of the woman’s heel. Obviously, the serpent is assumed to be Satan. In this song, Nergal turns it around on its head– the first line about the snake being spewed from the virgin’s cunt is Jesus being born from Mary the Virgin. See what he’s doing? He’s turning Jesus into the serpent and himself (Satan) into the seed of the woman. “Blow your trumpets Gabriel” is a reference to Gabriel, the slave of God, sucking God’s dick and sucking up to God, while Satan is independent and free.
January 22, 2014 at 6:10 pm
That’s a very insightful interesting interpretation of the video. I will have to watch it again now.
January 22, 2014 at 7:14 pm
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Personally, I think it’s a story of discovery and the end of something. She’s confronted with something that obviously scares her, but she doesn’t run. She accepts it, goes through it, experiences terror, pain, changes that she’s afraid of, but comes out of it.
She is smiling, she has accepted her fate and embraces it. When she survives, she is a powerful force to be reckoned with. She blows the trumpet, declaring the time of revelation. She is bringing judgement.
I guess all of this fits into what the author wrote, in a way. He got cancer. He didn’t shrink away, he faced it in all its wrath and came out of it different. Darker. Powerful. Ready until the end.
January 31, 2014 at 9:09 pm
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This can be taken in many ways. I myself am Jewish but I despise Judaism today. It’s become another recreation of xtianity. Anyways, I’m proud to be Jewish in the traditional sense because we are opposite to xtianity (not modern judaism). Our views and philosophies really crush the church entirely. We were burned as witches and are constantly called Satanic. Even in the new testament we Jews are called of the “Church of Satan”.
So the lyrics are very deep to me and I hear Negral (solely in my opinion) calling out a war against the church which enslaves and kills people (mentally and physically). I love the song and the video is sick. Well done Behemoth.
June 26, 2014 at 1:29 pm