PROFANATICA "Rotting Incarnation of God" HAVOHEJ "Table of Uncreation"

PROFANATICA “Rotting Incarnation of God”

HAVOHEJ “Table of Uncreation”

There has been a never-ending rush to be the most blasphemous in metal circles. From BLACK SABBATH to VENOM to DEICIDE and beyond, bands have steadily increased in their embrace of darkness and evil. Hell, an entire subgenre is pretty much based on the subject. In the struggle to be the sickest, most irreligious and most primitive, the bands of Paul Ledney, PROFANATICA and HAVOHEJ , usually rank at the top...or is it the bottom?

New records from both have arrived at roughly the same time, so let’s examine them PROFANATICA is the more polished of the two, which is not saying much. This is the kind of black metal that has little in common with the European version. It’s much more like super-primtive, Neanderthal death metal. Ledney was once a member of INCANTATION, but apparently that band was too “arty” for him. That tells a lot of what you need to know about PROFANATICA. Song titles like “Sacramental Cum”,  “Tithing Cunt” and “Broken Jew” are on the grade school level of blasphemy. But there is a brute force to the simple, often sludgy black death of these tracks. Fans of stuff like ARCHGOAT and DEAD CONGREGATION can probably relate to what PROFANATICA are doing. It’s not brilliant by any stretch and the dumbness of it can make you roll your eyes, but there is an evil power here.

Apparently Ledney thinks PROFANATICA is still too progressive and commercial for his tastes, so we have the even more knuckle-dragging HAVOHEJ. This garbage is pretty dire and demonstrates no songcraft whatsoever. It commits the ultimate sin, the sin of boredom. The cuts here sound like a vacuum cleaner going full blast with a mongoloid beating the drums in straight time. You could put chimps in a room full of instruments and come up with better songs. A lot of this really isn’t metal, but more like some kind of “field recording” or “found sound”, I’ve heard avant-garde music in that vein and even among those kind of bands, this is really dull stuff. It only pushes the envelope in terms of primitive idiocy. Even the blasphemy is not as interesting as PROFANATICA’s. Somehow this band has had a reputation for 25 years. They are better off totally ignored.

Neither is great, but PROFANATICA are at least heavy in some sense. HAVOHEJ is a whole lot of nothing.

SEASON OF MIST

HELLS HEADBANGERS

PROFANATICA

HAVOHEJ