Havohej - Dethrone the Son of God
Review: Exploring the inherent duality of "idiot savant" music Havohej structure simple songs out of predictable but stolid and violent intervals between notes. In a method similar to the music of Incantation, Havohej move simple repetitions between radically opposite rhythms and then alter the vectors of their riff composition. The resulting brutality entirely arises from the angry and abundant tension in the music.
Sawing riffs fly over ambient repetition drumming in the style of Bathory, but with enough rhythmic dynamic to cycle and then reflect off of a pitch harmonic shrieked on the cycle's return. Nihilistic, modern, and simplistic composition add to the idiot side of this music, making it seem feral - repulsive - often effectively riveting from its brazen simplicity and the clear message evoked by the primitive data relationships in the chromatic scale.
A voice like Paul Ledney is hard to find, and his exceptionally searing and fleshtorn vocals plod conveniently behind the bizarre and random but rhythmically cogent elements of each song. Usually only two major ideas alternate in a song, with small variation instantiations of each being used for further offset. The same insane narrative that guides us in each song concludes the album with an a cappella indictment of gOD and blasphemy of all that is holy, forcing uneasiness on the listener who feels his or her throat drying from the concept of that kind of vocal work.
With whatever deficits of composition can be extracted from observation of this piece of work, it is apparent that it at least seems to be by design that simplicity and doom-like minimalism are enforced upon the hapless listener. In this the aesthetic of nihilism is achieved to new fullness, and from there Havohej build what they can, including some new voicings of ideas shared genetically by death and black metal.