Les

Les — bassist and guitarist of Behemoth's early phase — was part of the band in the period when it was still black metal, before the turn that would take it to international reach. He was in the line-up of the first records, Sventevith (Storming Near the Baltic) (1995), Grom (1996) and Pandemonic Incantations (1998) — works made in a Poland just emerged from communist rule, with precarious studio and distribution infrastructure, and in an underground circuit that barely communicated with the West. This is Behemoth's least heard phase and the furthest from what the band would become. The sound was still raw second-wave black metal, with harsh production and subject matter tied to Slavic paganism, before the synthesis with death metal and the monumental orchestrations that would define Demigod (2005) and The Satanist (2014). As holder of both functions — bass and guitar — Les is part of the small core that sustained Behemoth when it was still a teenage project from Gdańsk.