h.IV+ (Hoarse Industrial Viremia)

First, I'll make it apparent that I'm not at all aware of anything ... And Oceans have done. This review is based solely on the merits of the band in their current incarnation, Havoc Unit.

Industrial metal seems to be on the rise at the moment. It's already pretty popular in black metal, with bands like DHG, Aborym and Blacklodge making serious headway in cementing themselves as masters of the sub-genre, and now another champion is arising - step forward, Havoc Unit.

At first listen, you could be forgiven for thinking this was actually a new Meshuggah album. The guitars pound and grind in strange time signatures, while jos.f does a fantastic job on vocals - his high-pitched, dry roar really is quite something to behold, even if the lyrics are a little uninspiring at times with an apparent need to stick to an AAAA rhyme scheme. It's a minor niggle, but certainly worth noting. Thankfully, it's not prevalent in every song, with tacks like Viremia featuring some wonderfully bleak lines. Vocal samples, spoken word and the like, are a nice touch; there are some lines from Nietzsche regarding Christianity that are particularly powerful.

The album doesn't fall into the category of black metal in any meaningful sense other than tone, where the industrial elements to this album really begin to hit home. It really does sound murky, grim, mechanical and nightmarish at times. The electronic effects are used relatively sparingly; sometimes they will be at the forefront of a searing beats-based track, and at others they add to an epic sound, slow and insurmountable, the cheyne stoking of humanity in the face of technological inferiority. The drumming on this album is a mix of mechanical grinding from a machine and human input; both are excellent, and fit very well with the tone of the album. Blasting is relatively rare, and when it comes you will not be disappointed, coming as it often does out of a relatively slow, crushing track into a genuine face-melter.

It's not without reason that I mentioned DHG, Aborym and Blacklodge. This album compares very favourably with some of their work, as well as that of other bands like Red Harvest. If you're a fan of any of those bands, I can absolutely recommend H.IV+; if you're a fan of all of them, this album is a genuine must-have.

After officially declaring …And Oceans dead with the transitional ..And Oceans/Havoc Unit/Sin Decay split, here is official full length debut from Havoc Unit, the newer and nastier incarnation of …And Oceans.


While most will more than likely remember the last two …And Oceans offerings, AMGOD and Cypher as water down techno laced black metal, it would not be fair to carry those preconceptions over to the aptly titled h:IV+, as it is an altogether different beast. Though still full of programming, samples and many buzzing whirring industrialized influences, it’s a far more caustic and rusty than anything they did under the ..And Oceans moniker.


More in line with the likes of V:28, DHG, Control Human Delete and PHOBOS rather than true cyber metal or the more extreme electronic based likes of Spektr or Zweizz, Havoc Unit is somewhere in between the three with a maniacal, mechanical and methodical delivery of spitefully industrial
blackened metal.


Rather than the simple pace and chunk of most industrial of most cyber tinged metal, Havoc Unit is angular and discordant. It’s like standing on the floor of a vast factory plant-there’s a certain beat you can ascertain after a while but initially it’s a calamitous mix of clunking, creaking, crashing, and buzzing. Then throw in some guitars and venomous, robotic rasps and see what it sounds like.


Tracks like lumbering opener “Vermicide”, scattershot assault of “I.Esus”, steady clunking “When Snugg Is No Longer Enough” and truly disturbing duo of “Gen.Eration Gen.Ocide” and “Viremia” make for an attention getting, ear shredding cacophony of abrasive, industrialized, programming filled chaos, but after that, it starts to get a bit repetitive and the pummelling, beeping dissonance gets a bit old. The riffs never really rise above the programming and the whole vitriol of the sound starts to wear off without the benefit of memorable riffs. Plus, the only real respite in the whole 54 minutes is the instrumental “Kristallnacht”.


To their credit the overall sick gloss of the production, programming and vocals are a pretty twisted vision of the genre making for a palpably icky overall atmosphere, but song wise, things are a bit to be desired, which is a bit of a disappointment as the group has had two years to get this makeover complete. Only an appearance from Solefald’s Lazare on “Ignoratio Elenchi” makes the album’s later stages worth re-visiting unless you really want to be heavily medicated to stop mechanical psychosis setting in.


By Erik Thomas (originally posted at http://www.digitalmetal.com)

Quite a number of And Oceans fans were baffled by the group’s sudden moniker change after a decade of successful cacophony. With such an underground legacy under their belts, why risk it all just for a youthful name? As weird as it sounds, the newly-found Havoc Unit did the dramatic adjustment to show a new essence in their mechanical assault, and acting like something totally different built a tough network of zapping industrial metal. Several splits have presented small doses of Havoc Unit’s revolutionary march, yet their long-awaited debut entitled “H.IV+ (Hoarse Industrial Viremia)” introduces a warhead of nuking corruption. This CD is kind of like a cool Ministry-Autopsy combination with spicy representations of both death metal and piping industrial perks; it’s perfectly balanced between brutality and experimentation.

On a musical base, Havoc Unit’s performance is widely diversified by multiple arrangements in which a variety of influences are portrayed. For instance, the seeds are planted in soil that’s smothered in fast, technical riffs and blastbeats; however, precipitation leads to other qualities, like atmospheric flowers, ambient sprouts, and groove weeds. Now a lot of you might shutter upon hearing about these touches that were previously unknown to this band, but it’s actually done very well, and the result is absolute chaos. Vocally, typical death metal growls are used from start to finish, but with a twist: industrial distortion! How else would an industrial metal tribe function properly without adding a computerized twist to the vocals? And yes, it’s a fantastic factor to this bizarre album.

While the heaviness is clearly a given, applications of electronic propaganda are nicely discharged onto Havoc Unit’s evolutionary pressings without tainting the squad’s harsh fierce raid on humanity. Throughout every waking moment of this record, samples of varied origins and identities glide over the exploding atmosphere like a storm of ash after an eruption. Hazy and consuming, light amounts of static, The Berzerker-like techno vibes, news reporting audio, and other loopy sounds penetrate the musical barrier atypically. The thing is, however, that these industrial motions are layered under the music itself; this leads to a thin shield of futuristic touches that doesn’t disrupt the death metal flow. An intelligent addition to such a unique release makes the digital copy so much better; don’t expect anything less than voltaic mastery from Finland’s finest electricians.

Havoc Unit’s full-length debut consistently delivers the appropriate mixture of trippy tinges and hard-hitting heaviness into one grand oddball of perplexing proportions. Change is considered somewhat taboo in metal, yet this Finish group once again proves you can’t have purity without a playbook focusing on alteration. To digest this release, one must realize the identity of And Oceans is gone like yesterday’s garbage; this band has been reborn in so many ways, and you can really see the total audio shift in a very positive manner. If you haven’t picked up one of the many Havoc Unit splits or crave weird music, be sure to hunt down “H.IV+ (Hoarse Industrial Viremia)” and its technological insanity.