HELLS HEADBANGERS is proud to reissue HAVOHEJ’s legendary Black Perversion EP on 12” vinyl and cassette tape formats.
Originally released in 1994, Black Perversion was the third recording of USBM pioneers HAVOHEJ following two releases the year before, the landmark Dethrone the Son of God album and even-more-primal Unholy Darkness and Impurity EP. However, whereas the former record largely comprised PROFANATICA material – that band having disbanded just prior to HAVOHEJ forming from its ashes – and the latter offering a more unorthodox barbarity, with Black Perversion did sole visionary Paul Ledney create an utterly uncompromising and unorthodox style of black metal that, at times, took out the “metal” entirely and simply went BLACK.
Still as crude and rude as its EP predecessor, Black Perversion was aptly titled, if solely because Ledney otherwise eschewed actual guitar, bass, and drums and instead used multi-layered loops of explosions slowed way down for “riffs” and V-drums to stifle any sense of normality or “human” element. Imagine the most primal, barbaric black metal; now imagine it stretched apart and condensed simultaneously, each note and gesticulation going from “wrong” to wronger to WRONGEST. Ritualistic and even (UGLY) avant-garde before such terms were applied to black metal, HAVOHEJ at this juncture were virtually cold and alone in such stratifying unorthodoxy, even amongst a landscape dotted with the likes of Abruptum or Beherit’s soon-to-be-revealed strive for electronic pastures. Naturally, Black Perversion was misunderstood and reviled upon its release and well into the 2000s, before PROFANATICA would eventually re-form (and HAVOHEJ would simultaneously increase activities) and Ledney would indeed have the last laugh.
Long out of print and long overdue, HELLS HEADBANGERS once again makes Black Perversion available again on vinyl – mastered at 45 RPM for maximum fidelity and immersion (and perversion) – and, for the first time ever, cassette tape.
