Hellig Usvart
Encyclopedia
Hellig Usvart is the debut album by Australian unblack metal
Unblack metal
Unblack metal is a term used to describe musically black metal sounding artists whose lyrics and imagery promote Christianity. Such artists are controversial, mainly because black metal's pioneers, especially those of the Second Wave, intended to encourage hostility towards Christianity...

 band Horde
Horde (band)
Horde is the single-album unblack metal project of Australian musician Jayson Sherlock, formerly of Mortification and Paramaecium. In 1994 the only album Hellig Usvart was released on Nuclear Blast. With a session line-up, Horde played live-shows in 2006, Norway, and in 2010 in Finland and Germany...

, released in 1994 on Nuclear Blast Records. Upon its release in 1994, the album created a controversy among the black metal fans; death threats were sent to Nuclear Blast demanding the label to drop the album from its catalogue because the album contains Christian, anti-satanic lyrics that counteract the usual black metal thematics at the time. Because of the strong lyrical contradiction, the album was thought to be a parody of the Norwegian black metal movement by magazines such as Morgenbladet
Morgenbladet
Morgenbladet is a Norwegian weekly newspaper. It was founded in 1819 by the book printer Niels Wulfsberg, and was the country's first daily newspaper. For a long time, it was also the country's biggest newspaper. It was closed down by the German Wehrmacht during World War II...

in 1995.

The sole member of the band, Jayson Sherlock
Jayson Sherlock
Jayson Sherlock was the drummer for the Australian death metal band Mortification, which was considered to be a major pioneer in the genre.Sherlock was the founder of the one-man project Unblack metal band Horde, in which he played every instrument...

 who used the pseudonym Anonymous, has later stated in interviews that the album was intended to bring "some hope, some light to the bleak black metal subculture." Rowe Productions
Rowe Productions
Rowe Productions is a Christian record label. It was founded by Mortification vocalist Steve Rowe. The label mainly focuses on thrash/unblack metal artists.-Former Artists:*16 Stitch *Fearscape...

 and Metal Mind Productions
Metal Mind Productions
Metal Mind Productions is a Polish record label founded in 1987. Currently it is one of the lead independent labels in Poland with over 1000 of licences and over 10 million of data mediums sold. The label focuses mainly on rock and heavy metal genres...

 have re-issued the album since, as Hellig Usvart achieved a respected landmark status in the Christian metal
Christian metal
Christian metal, also known as white metal, is a form of heavy metal music usually defined by its message in a song's lyrics as well as the band's dedication to Christianity...

 movement, and it is regarded as the first and most groundbreaking Christian black metal album.

Recording history

In 1993, drummer Jayson Sherlock had just parted ways with the death metal band Mortification
Mortification (band)
Mortification is an Australian Christian extreme metal band which was formed in 1987 as a heavy metal group, Lightforce, by mainstay Steve Rowe on bass guitar and vocals. By 1990, in the Melbourne suburb of Moorabbin, they were renamed as Mortification with the line-up of Rowe, Michael Carlisle on...

 and joined the band Paramaecium. During this time, Sherlock was charmed by Northern European black metal music but did not like the malicious lyrical approach of the movement. He decided to record similar music with a Christian message, with intent to bring hope to the bleak black metal subculture. Sherlock ended up forming a solo project, as he could play guitar, bass and keyboards aside with drums, his main instrument. In 1994 he formed a solo project under the name Beheadoth and recorded the song "Mine Heart Doth Beseech Thee (O Master)" for a compilation album by Rowe Productions
Rowe Productions
Rowe Productions is a Christian record label. It was founded by Mortification vocalist Steve Rowe. The label mainly focuses on thrash/unblack metal artists.-Former Artists:*16 Stitch *Fearscape...

. Later, Sherlock changed the name Beheadoth to "Horde." He took advantage of his former band Mortification's relationship to Nuclear Blast Records
Nuclear Blast
Nuclear Blast is an independent record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The record label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label moved on to releasing albums by melodic...

, and talked to the label owner Markus Staiger about releasing Horde's album. Staiger became interested in the project and decided to release the album.

Sherlock recorded an album between July 11–15, 1994. He played, produced, and mixed everything himself. A person under the pseudonym "Unblack Mark" handled the studio and recording techniques. As a graphic artist himself, Sherlock created the album's packaging and cover picture. Sherlock marked himself under the pseudonym "Anonymous" in the album's booklet since neither he nor the record company were supposed to reveal his identity. The album was named Hellig Usvart, which is Norwegian for "holy unblack". Sherlock said in an interview about the name: "I read on the back of an early Dark Throne album, 'Dark Throne play Unholy Black Metal'. Horde was always going to be lyrically the opposite of this, hence: 'Holy Unblack Metal'. I guess this is how the 'unblack' name or title came about. The music sounded like BM, but because of the lyrics and the spirit behind it, it is not BM."

Overview

Musically, Hellig Usvart features a musical output similar to the early 1990s Norwegian primitive, lo-fi, old school black metal music. The first three songs feature a more obscure output, while songs such as "Thine Hour Hast Come" and "Invert the Inverted Cross" are more groovy. The album is said to contain outstanding drumming, for Sherlock was primarily a drummer. Lyrically, Hellig Usvart features indirect praise for God, and is known for its anti-satanic approach, as implied by the song titles.

Upon original release in 1994, 4,000 copies of the album were printed. In 1999, Rowe Productions
Rowe Productions
Rowe Productions is a Christian record label. It was founded by Mortification vocalist Steve Rowe. The label mainly focuses on thrash/unblack metal artists.-Former Artists:*16 Stitch *Fearscape...

 purchased all remaining copies and distributed them worldwide. The album has since been re-released on this label with an additional track entitled, "My Heart Doth Beseech Thee (O Master)". However, in 2004 the Australian label Soundmass re-issued Hellig Usvart as an 10 year anniversary edition. Also in 2008, the Polish label Metal Mind Productions
Metal Mind Productions
Metal Mind Productions is a Polish record label founded in 1987. Currently it is one of the lead independent labels in Poland with over 1000 of licences and over 10 million of data mediums sold. The label focuses mainly on rock and heavy metal genres...

 re-released the album in a digipak format.

Controversies

Upon the initial release of Hellig Usvart, a publicity campaign was launched throughout the black metal community, revolving around Sherlock being credited as "Anonymous". Unsuccessful death-threats were given to Markus Staiger at Nuclear Blast to reveal the identity of the anonymous musician who had created the album, although the identity of the musician was later revealed as Jayson Sherlock. Horde as an entity also received death threats for being a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 band playing black metal. In an interview with Son of Man Records' Erasmus, Sherlock says: "I only ever heard about them [death threats] second hand. I never personally received any death threats at all, not one. I kept hearing but that was all." Because of the intense, furious anti-satanic themes of "horn crushing" and "goat violence," the album was widely thought to be a parody of the black metal scene. As an evidence of that, on June 6, 1995, the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet
Morgenbladet
Morgenbladet is a Norwegian weekly newspaper. It was founded in 1819 by the book printer Niels Wulfsberg, and was the country's first daily newspaper. For a long time, it was also the country's biggest newspaper. It was closed down by the German Wehrmacht during World War II...

wrote an article about the phenomenon of Horde, writing: "Horde's album is an abrupt satire of the Norwegian black metal movement." The same article says of Hellig Usvart that "all the obligatory Spinal Tap
Spinal Tap (band)
Spinal Tap is a parody heavy metal band that first appeared on a failed 1979 ABC TV sketch comedy pilot called "The T.V. Show", starring Rob Reiner...

 references are here: [the liner notes of the album says that] Anonymous plays 'Total Apocalyptic Lead Guitar' and 'Cataclysmic Bass Rumblings'. Obviously 'amplified to eleven
Up to eleven
"Up to eleven" or "these go to eleven" is an idiom from popular culture which has come to refer to anything being exploited to its utmost abilities, or apparently exceeding them, such as a sound volume control. Similarly, the expression "turning it up to eleven" refers to the act of taking...

'." However, Sherlock clears the parody controversy up in a 2006 interview:

Impact and legacy

Hellig Usvart was a seminal, highly influential album for the Christian black metal movement. The album spawned some imitators, especially in South America, with groups such as Poems of Shadows taking apparent influences from Horde's style on their album Nocturnal Blasphemous Chanting. The raging lyrics of anti-satanism would dominate the unblack scene for years. Concerned about that, Erasmus of Son of Man Records asked Sherlock in a 2006 interview: "Do you feel that unblack metal will be able to efficiently continue its response to black metal if it does not grow beyond 'horn crushing'?" Sherlock responded, "No I do not. The lyrics on 'Hellig Usvart' were written 12 years ago. I'm sure that if another Horde album was written today, the themes would be quite different and much more mature, to counteract the poetic and intelligent (albeit misguided) lyrics of modern BM."

After the release magazines such as HM gave Hellig Usvart good reviews, and later critics such as Matt Morrow of The Whipping Post gave the album 10/10, writing "...this album was made more than anything, to make a point. It made that point loud and clear, and it also kicked the door wide open and paved the way for many Christian black metal bands in the future to bring the light of Christ to an extremely dark music scene." In 2010, HM Magazine listed Hellig Usvart #63 on its Top 100 Christian Rock Albums of All Time list stating that it "kicked off a Christocentric infiltration of black metal culture" and it "holds up as a righteously furious assault".

Track listing

  • All Songs Written By Anonymous (Jayson Sherlock).
  1. "A Church Bell Tolls Amidst the Frozen Nordic Winds" — 1:02
  2. "Blasphemous Abomination of the Satanic Pentagram" — 0:47
  3. "Behold, the Rising of the Scarlet Moon" — 3:22
  4. "Thine Hour Hast Come" — 4:05
  5. "Release and Clothe the Virgin Sacrifice" — 5:37
  6. "Drink From the Chalice of Blood" — 3:59
  7. "Silence the Blasphemous Chanting" — 5:37
  8. "Invert the Inverted Cross" — 3:10
  9. "An Abandoned Grave Bathes Softly in the Falling Moonlight" — 5:09
  10. "Crush the Bloodied Horns of the Goat" — 2:24
  11. "Weak, Feeble, and Dying Anti-Christ" — 3:32
  12. "The Day of Total Armageddon Holocaust" — 1:43
  13. "My Heart Doth Beseech Thee (O Master)" (Bonus track on reissue) — 2:56

Personnel

  • Anonymous (aka Jayson Sherlock
    Jayson Sherlock
    Jayson Sherlock was the drummer for the Australian death metal band Mortification, which was considered to be a major pioneer in the genre.Sherlock was the founder of the one-man project Unblack metal band Horde, in which he played every instrument...

    ) - vocals, lead, rhythm & acoustic guitars, bass, keyboards, drums

Production

  • Executive Producer: Markus Staiger
  • Arranged, Produced & Mixed By Anonymous
  • Recorded & Engineered By "Unblack Mark"

External links

  • Hellig Usvart at Discogs
    Discogs
    Discogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...

    : link
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