Havohej

Formed in June 1993, this profane black metal outfit operated under the direction of Paul Ledney, a self-confessed New York Satanist who also worked as a drum-teacher and graphic artist. Reflecting on the shift he observed in the scene, Ledney remarked: ‘In the days when Venom first appeared there was something very personal about what was going on. You could relate to the music. Now there are just too many trendies jumping on a bandwagon and imitating what they perceive as being the atmosphere of the genre. They all put on make-up and sing about Satan. They believe that alone makes them evil’. Drawing equal inspiration from early punk bands, Ledney launched Havohej strictly as a studio project once his prior group, Profanatica, disbanded after studio tapes of their planned debut album vanished without explanation; that project had carried the working title The Raping Of The Virgin Mary. Prior to the split, Profanatica had issued a split album alongside Columbian band Massacre on the Osmose label and released the three-track single ‘Unholy Darkness And Impurity’. Havohej, like its predecessor, drew support from the underground tape-trading circuit, which helped circulate many tracks on the group’s debut album that were essentially rebuilt versions of material first developed in Ledney’s earlier band. By the middle of 1994, however, Havohej had also ceased activity.