Review of Havohej - Kembatinan Premaster

You better be in the right frame of mind for this one. And by “right,” I mean not right at all. Kembatinan Premaster is the second full-length from Havohej (or “Jehovah” spelled backwards), the work solely that of one man, Paul Ledney (Profantica, Incantation, Toten, Abomination, etc) and it is 34 minutes – not sure why the label information lists it as a 37-minute disc – of black ‘n drone for the disturbed (perhaps chemically altered) mind. Sixteen years later and the dude still darts in and out of misfiring synapses.Consisting of one eight-part treatment, the album is intended for one-sitting listens, presumably in the presence of burning black candles, inverted crucifixes, and for those into that sort of thing, copious amounts of Salvia. The eight-part treatment consists mainly of a kind of driving drone with “black vomit” vocals, sometimes blasting (“Pious Breath”), sometimes simply up-tempo and straight on (“Blood and Souls), and sometimes of a more measured rhythmic variety shrouded in the kind of atmosphere found in filthy porn theaters and black and white snuff films (e.g. the 10-minute “Melancholike”).

Lyrically, it is as blasphemous and anti-Christian as it gets, perhaps more off putting to the easily offended than most. “But is it any good?” you ask. Personally, I rather like it; there is something about the manner in which the harshness is harnessed that I find appealing to my ADD-addled brain. Maybe it’s that I find the possibilities for it to annoy the unsuspecting so pleasing. Look for sound samples before you make a purchase decision.