Hellig Usvart is the debut studio album by Australian unblack metal band Horde, released on Nuclear Blast Records in 1994. Upon its release, the album created a controversy among many 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, counteracting the usual black metal thematics at the time. As a result of the strong lyrical contradiction, the album was thought to be a parody of the Norwegian black metal movement by magazines such as Morgenbladet in 1995.
The sole member of the band, Jayson Sherlock (who used the pseudonym Anonymous), later stated in interviews that the album was intended to bring "some hope, some light to the bleak black metal subculture." Rowe Productions, Metal Mind Productions, and Soundmass have since released reissues of the album. Hellig Usvart has achieved a respected landmark status in the Christian metal movement, and it is regarded as the first and most groundbreaking Christian black metal album.
Recording history
In 1993, drummer Jayson Sherlock parted ways with the Christian death metal band Mortification, having been in the band since 1990, and joined the death-doom metal 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 but with a Christian message, with the 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 musical instrument. In 1994, Sherlock's solo project, Beheadoth, recorded the song "Mine Heart Doth Beseech Thee (O Master)" for the Godspeed: Australian Metal Compilation album by Rowe Productions, going under the pseudonym Unpaganuth Necronomoccultociduth. He later changed the name of the solo project from Beheadoth to Horde and changed his pseudonym to Anonymous. Sherlock made use of his former band Mortification's relationship with Nuclear Blast Records and talked to the label owner, Markus Staiger, about releasing Horde's album. Staiger became interested in the project and decided to release it.
Hellig Usvart was recorded in four days, beginning on 11 July and ending on 15 July 1994; Sherlock mixed, played, and produced 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's title, Hellig Usvart, is Norwegian for "Holy Unblack". Sherlock said in an interview about the album 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 groove-based, and "Weak, Feeble, Dying Antichrist" is more doom metal-based. The album is said to contain outstanding drumming, for Sherlock was primarily a drummer. Lyrically, Hellig Usvart features direct and indirect praise for God, and is known for its anti-satanic approach, as implied by the song titles.
Upon its original release in 1994 on Nuclear Blast, 4,000 copies of the album were printed. In 1999, Rowe Productions purchased the 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)". In October 2004, the Australian label Soundmass reissued Hellig Usvart as a 10-year anniversary edition. In May 2008, the Polish label Metal Mind Productions remastered the album in a digipak format and included three live bonus tracks. The Metal Mind release was limited to 2,000 copies. Soundmass reissued Hellig Usvart on vinyl in 2018 and later in 2019 on CD for the album's twenty-fifth anniversary.