Hellig usvart

"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." (Timothy 4:1)

"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." (Peter 2:1)

Swift destruction; presumably of a rather gruesome nature. Torn cartilage; rent muscle; pulverized osseous matter; pulped organs; tattered sinew. All but as a pinprick upon a sperm whale's ass in comparison to the true Wrath. Hellfire. Damnation. Eternal torment and suffering. Most importantly, the privation of HIS Love and Warmth. "Son of the morning, Thine hour hast come. Thou will be stripped of power, and lowered into the very DEPTHS of HELL! Thy fate is worse than Death -- Eternal suffering, and DAMNATION!"

Such spiritual carnage. God is Love.

Yes, Horde is (or rather, was) enamoured of the wrath of The One and Only True God (He is! The Bible SAYS SO!), Lorde of Hosts; much like a middle child taking delight in a parent's chastising of an errant elder sibling. In the 1,994th Year of Our (Your) Lord, one man -- Outraged, spiteful, conflicted, and clearly not especially disposed towards turning the other cheek -- gave birth to this little musical curio; a dervish-borne testament to the perverse and self-contrary nature of the human creature. In venting what has always seemed to me to be a veritable deluge of frustration and confusion, Anonymous chose as his channeling medium what would likely have been one of the most "negative" vehicles he was aware of -- the Scandinavian black metal sound of the late 80s and early 90s. It must have seemed appropriate to him, somehow....having decided to go beyond the realm of the loving (and Biblically ordained) "rebuke" into an open declaration of intolerance for and war against that which is not Holy, what better tool to use than one of the true aural manifestations of disgust and ill will?

In realizing the above concept, Hellig Usvart came to sound like nothing so much as a tribute to the most well-known names in northern black metal at the time -- chiefly Immortal; Darkthrone; Mayhem; and a bit of Bathory, though one can also hear what I'd liken to a slight Bestial Summoning (primarily on the 1992 album The Dark War has Begun) flavor on some of the more energetic tracks, such as "Blasphemous Abominations of the Sacred Pentagram." Burzum was around during this period, as well, of course, but doesn't seem to have had much influence on Horde's sound (this was a bit too early for Emperor to have been much of a factor, mind you). Indeed, the single most characteristic aspect of the album's style is how derivative it sounds; this becomes all the more significant when one considers its age. It is almost literally nothing but a recombinance of elements/approaches taken from the aforementioned bands; even in the realm of production quality. It was predictable then; even moreso in the here and now. Now, in the interest of fairness, note the "almost", above. Vocally, this was a bit different, characterized more by truncated, high-pitched wailing, rather than the more gutteral or mid-ranged, rasping quality of utterance favored by the northern vanguard of the time. Additionally, if one is paying attention (and is familiar with the author, I suppose), the bent of some of the riffs and rhythms bely Anonymous' experience in doom and "life" (read: holy attempt at death) metal, as in "An Abandoned Grave Bathes Softly in the Falling Moonlight." On the whole, regardless, what we hear on this offering is basically pure and unadulterated pastiche : Immortal's pacing, Mayhem's single-minded songwriting, and Darkthrone's aural vestments. It is all duplicated with what appears to be great care and attentiveness, similar to, oh, I don't know.....a monk copying a Bible, say? As a result of the method by which it was conceived, its overall effect is rather flat. It sounds the notes, but loses the music. Less than revelatory, despite its obvious reverence. Less than extraordinary, despite its ecstacy. I am personally not one to put a great deal of emphasis on how "original" (or not) a given piece is when evaluating its overall impact; regardless, I know a blatant carbon copy when I see (hear) one. This is nothing but worship....and worship at a very, shall we say, "suspect" altar, given the bent of the one-man-mass' "faith." Taken for what it is, as opposed to what it was intended to be (which is fairly ambiguous), what we have here is a Lamb playing in the dark. Or perhaps I should say, playing at the dark. It is a nonsensical paradox; a misbegotten novelty. Message and means are not aligned, indeed being mutually exclusive. It is no more worthy of attention or respect than a self-professed vegan willfully in the employ of the Armour company would be.

"But Nightgaunt! How can you be so unfair!? Belittling this great album and downplaying its worth just because of its lyrics is silly and illogical!" (Open-Mindedness (TM) 6:12)

My response is that a failure to do so is far more silly, and infinitely more illogical. The notion that manifestation may be cleanly separated from message is ridiculous. Since we are dealing with mutton metal, let us use the Bible as an instructive case. Ask yourself: "What is the Bible?" There are several reasonable answers to the question. It is a book (The Book, if you prefer). It is a collection of anecdotes illustrating a set of principles by which one may ("should"/"must", as it is presented) live. It is a group of pieces (or "books"), said pieces being comprised of sentences/statements, said sentences being comprised of words, said words being comprised of characters (said characters being symbols representing vocal sounds; said sounds representing......), all arranged in a non-arbitrary fashion. To what end? To spread/manifest the Word; to carry and articulate a message. The Saved among you, the Believers, have presumably found that something about the Bible resonates deeply within yourselves; something makes the experience meaningful to you, yes? What, pray tell, is that something? Is it the gross psychomechanical process of seeing a sequence of characters and semiconsciously arranging them into a pattern; assigning basic coherency based on vocabularly and prefabricated grammatical constructs; neurodynamic masturbation? Of course it isn't. It is the message. The ideas that are both manifested by and the motivating force behind the writing. The Word. The Gospels have a basic format/approach (that of the parable) as well as a voice, a tone, a preferred vocabulary, and countless other compositional considerations--in a word, an aesthetic. They clearly have a message (excuse me, Message), as well. These things are not unrelated or irrelevant to each other. The message informs the aesthetic. The One Truth of His Love is a particular kind of message; Christ's way of speaking (words used, order in which propositions are presented, etc.) is determined by what he wished to say, and in turn the flavor of the message is reflected within the aesthetic itself, even as it strives to articulate the message. The two aspects serve and are served by one another; they are interdependent. Such is the nature of these things. Would the Bible -- the manifestation of the Word -- have been the same if the Book were more openly adversarial? If it had been highly apologetic in tone? Would the Book have been the same if the Word were a decree of debauchery for chaos' sake?

Of course not.

Black metal, too, is an inextricably intertwined combination of aesthetic and message. Attempt to artificially excise one from the other, and whatever one ends up with will no longer be true to the spirit of black metal. A certain lack of or incompatibility between modes of Christian perception/worldview is a characteristic of all metal to at least some degree, however small in any given case; and in none moreso than in death and black metal. Addicted Lambs (and religious apologists and the rabidly open-minded) tend to persist in framing the issue in terms of gross categorizations; the theology of Satanism or Luciferianism, as well as the prefix "anti-", as opposed to "un." The distinction is key. The "un" is omnipresent within the relevant realm; "anti-" is a matter of degree. If Christian doom metal is like trying to fit a cylindrical wooden peg with diameter of 10.5 centimeters into a circular hole 10 centimeters in diameter, then this "UnBlack metal" business is like trying to fit a live, incontinent walrus through a star-shaped aperture 5 centimeters in diameter. Simpleminded aural echolalia cannot compensate for the gaping disconnect between the explicit message of the text and the (more central, more enduring, etc.) implicit message of the notes and arrangements....and Horde's work reflects this, even seems half-aware of it at times. Nowhere is this more apparent than in "An Abandoned Grave Bathes Softly In The Falling Moonlight", a song whose musical component is almost 100% opposed to its lyrical content. It is a solidly-composed song (probably my choice for the standout of the album), bleak and subtly melancholy, yet with lyrics concerning what one would think to be a topic of extreme joy and euphoria for True Believers. Not as obvious, but more interesting, is "Crush the Bloodied Horns of the Goat." The song, with its raging tempo and decidedly graphic lyrics ("Tear out the eyes, leaving bloody holes! Total obliteration! Includes decapitation! Ritualistic goat killing! Skinned head used in ceremony!") seems to become so deeply engrossed in the furor of its own pastiche of black metal's compositional and "literary" techniques -- almost fetishistically so -- that it begins to lose itself; the stronger and more deeply-rooted of the two messages beginning to assert itself, perhaps? Let it be a lesson, oh ye Faithful--which will it be? Heaven, or some blastbeats?

"Gasp! But Nightgaunt! Who are YOU to tell people what they can and cannot listen to!? That's so ELITIST!" (Open-Mindedness (TM) 23:3)

I don't think your youth pastor would approve of you using such words. "Speak ye of the Devyl, and he shalt verily appeare", and whatnot. Regardless, I'm clearly not in a position of that kind of authority, nor do I fancy otherwise. I for one don't give a jar of pickled penguin gizzards; truth be told, I've heard metal records that are worse than this one, and some of them were even by less ideologically confused/misbegotten (and less compositionally talented, of course) bands. You want to, as Anonymous puts it, "Lay in pieces in the dust, awaiting fires of Hell" over some tremolo picking and necrotic caterwauling, that's your business, and I'll see you in Hell. In the meantime, just don't kid yourself that Jesus and his old man are "down" with you little Lambs frolicking in the Goats' pasture (Why would you even wish to? It's so much greener on your side, isn't it?); a lyrical rainslicker isn't going to save your soul from the eventual rain of brimstone anymore than an umbrella would save your skin if the Sears Tower fell over on top of you. The epigraph doesn't treat with nonbelievers, you see....it treats with heretics. For the rest of you, take Hellig Usvart for what it is: a poorly-conceived and rather nondescript (if technically competent) performance that its own author came to regret afterwards; an illustrative instance of only half-intentional parody. Indeed, even those select few Who Shall Not Eternally Burn in Ye Hereafter might glean something useful from it:

"For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." (Corinthians 11:19)

Standouts: An Abandoned Grave Bathes Softly in the Falling Moonlight, Crush the Bloodied Horns of the Goat, Release and Clothe the Virgin Sacrifice (for sheer zany lyrical madcap).