H418ov21.C

The idea of revisiting this album decades later is one I regret. It is like going back to a restaurant that gave you food poisoning the first time, and then coming back for seconds out of stupid curiosity. It is genuinely sickening. Talk about being a glutton for punishment. Needless to say, I am beyond confused with this collection of tracks today as I was back when I first heard this in the late 90's.

Beherit's second full release, and follow up to Drawing Down the Moon is not a compilation of songs, but a collection of nine tracks. This was initially intended as an ambiance record that has been called ritual music. Coming from a metal background, you'd expect some follow up album that is layered ambiance that evokes a range of emotions, or scenes, or maybe some intricate or rhythmically thought producing sounds... No... Oh no... Instead we get some foul one man band sounding project that should've been kept private. Like, how the hell do you go from Drawing Down the Moon to this? Easy. Strip away all guitars, whisper repeatedly some lame words into a microphone, then let your cat sit on your keyboard all day, and then use drum samples from this same awful synth. Did someone find this synth in their grandmother's basement? I don't know exactly, but the results are bad.

Most everything contained in this recording is the "artist" pushing the key on the synth repeatedly over nothing else. This here is as basic and annoying as it gets. The tracks are guitarless and so boring. The tracks with keyboards are tacky and lack any real creativity. The first track of this release greats us with some cheap sound samples. Talk about being the definition of lo-fi in its most seriously undesirable, and unpleasant state. The track Tribal Death has the some semblance of it's predecessor because it has some depth to it, but is confined to the lameness of this release's aimless limitations. The whispered line "the planet is mine" is repeated over, and over as the background thumping goes on. Where is the effort here? Are we being trolled? The only track here that seems to have any musical merit is Paradise (part II). Everything else here is synthetic and disposable trash.

I also don't care that this is labelled as ritual music here, this is laughable crap and should be deleted from existence. I really wish that I could get my 40 minutes of my life back.

Criticism and problems with the line-up that Beherit had to deal with at the beginning of its activity quickly caused Nuclear Holocausto Vengeance to end itself off from the metal scene of that time and just as quickly decided to work on its own. First, in the same year as "Drawing Down The Moon", a short ep was released ("Messe Des Morts"), maintained in a much more noise aesthetic than its predecessor (although still using black metal patterns - despite the programmed drums), and just a year later the second lp was released, with the strange title "H418ov21.C" (apparently taken from Aleister Crowley), on which Vengeance, here named as a Holocaust Gamma-g, drastically broke with extreme sounds. Along with the growing love of electronic music, Finn decided to delve into ambient and synth climates.

Apart from the cold, slightly mystical atmosphere, "H418ov21.C" unfortunately has little to offer, just a very modest amount of simple samples and spoken vocals processed by various effects. Well, the pressure drops very rapidly here, around the second track ("Tribal Death"), where the main problem of the disc appears: monotony and atmosphere completely devoid of interesting ornaments. The whole album gives the impression of communing with something made at random, as if you were dealing with a soundtrack to a cheap game from a gaming newspaper - preferably for one undemanding session. And not that the lack of classically understood rock instruments is a problem here, because absolutely not!, but most of all, the disappearance of the "ritual strangeness" from the debut, which was emanated by even the occasional ambients. Instead, "H418ov21.C" is dominated by keyboard passages based on one-two themes, 8-bits, sinister invocations and some electronic pounding. As a result, even if an interesting patent appears, it doesn't make anything more sensible when it's rolled for 4-6 minutes repetitively. Except that this is also a rarity, because the vast majority of these "patents" simply sound cheap, like a parody of the occult.

The first departure from Beherit's black metal style is therefore definitely not worth. "H418ov21.C" looks more like the outline of working on music than an album that is about to seriously redefine its own sound. It's all strange because only a year earlier, the Holocaust did not lack ideas for this type of sick atmosphere.

Originally on A bit of subjectivism...in metal

I have a special fondness for Beherit's stranger mid-career stuff (after demos, before the resurrection) and so does my lady, who referred to it as "electric bellydancing music", which is a title that is quite apt at times. H418ov21.C, which I presume to be an acronym for "house four hundred and eighteen of the twenty-first century", based off the song "Paradise", has no inherent flaws, so of course I find myself listening to this fairly regularly, but suffers many surface, aesthetic-type flaws. Like the title I wrote says, I consider this album as not bad, perse', but incomplete. At the forefront are what I consider useless songs, which are "Fish", and, to a lesser extent, "21st century".

Fish, which comes off as an epilogue to the earlier "emotional ecstasy", starts off with the ringing bells from the previous track, followed by a bass drum kick for the rest of its duration, and kinda stops the atmosphere earlier from really taking shape, and I invariably skip to the next song once the bass drum starts beating. Perhaps I don't "get" it, but it sounds like Holocausto had some idea of what he was going to do with it, but scrapped that idea and left an uncompleted song and tried to pass it off as an outro. This is further compounded by "21st Century", which, due to the weird effects is a bit more interesting than the "Fish", but that it comes right after the aforementioned song really tests my patience every time I try to listen to this album from front to finish. While the follow-up effort Electric Doom Synthesis is better when listened to in its entirety, those two tracks I mentioned pretty much grind the atmosphere to a halt. The next song, Paradise, presents a similar fashion as the opening song, The Gate of Innana (which Beherit fans should notice is a play on a previous Beherit song), which is a slow, doomish electro beat with rather basic synth accompaniment that, again, sounds like it was never completed. The vocals are a bit in front and sound rather silly, but aren't too offensive, thought they still are inferior to the (obviously) pitch shifted vocals from H418ov21.C's follow up. This incompleteness is also apparent in Spirit God of Fire, which brings a new definition to the word "minimal" and sounds pretty cool at first yet, again, it just doesn't sound completed, which makes the atmospheric hold rather tenuous and fleeting, due to the rushed and incomplete sound Holocausto got here.

There are gems hidden here, though. "Mystik Force" features a rather hypnotic beat that occasionally drops out in favor of chilling ambiance, but this time around the beat never feels old, and we hear a hint at the properly done vocals of Electric Doom Synthesis on this song as well. Both "Emotional Ecstasy" and "E-scape" feature dramatic, crystalline, synthesizer swells, that have a deceptively pleasant vibe, which boosts the atmosphere considerably. As well, we have the gem of the album: Tribal Death. This would qualify as the most "completed" sounding track, with a beat that is both entrancing and complex, and never mind that the synthesizers just hold one note the whole time while the drums and percussion are intertwining to create a catchy yet sinister and atavistic sounding vibe, elaborate in its execution.

In the end, is this a good album? At its core, yes. But it just has too many flaws that could have been overcome had more time been spent on its design and layout. Holocausto would eventually deliver us such an album in Electric Doom Synthesis. Otherwise, I must simply muse on what could have been.

Burzum, Ildjarn and Beherit are the big three of black metal to convert to ambient music in a serious way in the mid 1990s. The success of these experiments has been somewhat hit and miss. Burzum’s first attempt was ambitious, hammy and ultimately failed. The follow up however, was much more refined and perfectly translated the music and message of Burzum into the ambient style. Ildjarn’s ‘Landscapes’ sank into music so minimal you may as well listen to silence, again however, his collaboration with Nidhogg offered a much more engaging listen, boasting some of the most sublime moments that any black metal artist has given us yet. Beherit’s two efforts are the most obviously distinct from Ildjarn and Burzum’s, adopting drum machines and elements normally associated with electronica.

The first of these two efforts is ‘H418ov21.C’ is the less loved; maybe rightly so, but I strongly recommend it. It opens with an interpretation, redo, parody(?) of ‘The Gate of Nanna’ on previous release ‘Drawing Down the Moon’. Hopefully this was intended as something of joke, but even with that in mind this is a tedious way to open an album and will deter many listeners from the off. However, the determined listener is rewarded for their patients as the rest of the album has some surprises. There are hints of the style found here on earlier Beherit efforts, but here we have the guitars completely stripped away giving the more music room to breathe.

It is this reviewer’s view that the artist was aiming for a tapestry of sounds that blend seamlessly together rather than individual songs. Whilst one track may boast nothing but a metronome, placed in context it is an unsettling transition from one soundscape to another. Maybe it was decided that this approach did not work however, because the follow up album opted for more distinct songs that complement each other rather than a transition of atmospheres.

The listener is taken on a journey through the tediously minimal to the vastly ambient with well judged transitions and everything in its proper place. This assessment of the album as a whole is not instantly obvious however, and it does take a good few listens before what the artist was probably aiming for becomes apparent. Much like drifting through space, there are moments of great beauty and great tedium, but the contrasts are what is of value. The odd vocal effect used on the aforementioned re-run of ‘The Gate of Nanna’ make another appearance later on in the album, but this time their use is more tasteful and unexpected, fitting much more comfortably with the whole mood of the album.

On the whole this is not as accomplished as follow up ‘Electric Doom Synthesis’ but that does not make this album a failure, far from it. If you approach this with true black metal ears tuned then you will be sorely disappointed. Even if you approach with an open mind it does take a few listens to get your head around the piece as a whole, because aside from the opening number, nothing immediately makes itself apparent to your ears. Nothing stands out and slaps you round the face, which again in itself may put impatient people off. But listened to as a whole you get a sense of drifting through atmospheres and moods of varying intensity and minimalism with each separate element doing its job in the context it was placed. This is one mark of a good black metal album even if this is more like an electronica act playing in the style of Beherit. This still comes highly recommended.

The follow-up to “Drawing Down the Moon” had a lot of expectations to live up to and it failed miserably. According to Holocausto himself, this album was only meant to be a teaser before the second proper Beherit full-length. However, after the release of “Drawing Down the Moon” Holocausto moved to Helsinki and was unable to get himself a new line-up and therefore the black metal side of Beherit was laid to rest. Around the same time Holocausto’s interest in electronic music grew and as a result “H418ov21.C” became the band’s official second full-length.

I decided to review this album just to see whether all time between its release and today has changed my opinion on it. Upon hearing it back in 1994 I was horrified and guess what? I still am. Time has not softened my attitude concerning “H418ov21.C” – it’s still a crappy album as a whole. The major part of the album consists of amateurish and undeveloped electro/ambient music which almost totally fails to deliver. The lack of variation and simplicity of most of the tracks drives me nuts, it sounds like there was hardly any compositional effort put into “H418ov21.C”. In fact, Holocausto even steals from himself on some tracks.

“The Gate of Inanna”, in all its simplicity, is actually one of the most elaborate tracks here, despite the fact that it’s musically boring as hell: the same ultra simple keyboard “riff” (which is just an adaptation of one of the main riffs of “The Gate of Nanna” from “Drawing Down the Moon”) and drum machine rhythm is repeated throughout the whole track! That’s right. No breaks, no fills, no B-part or C-part of the song, no variation whatsoever. This track features vocals which actually sound pretty sinister but are electronically processed. “Fish” begins with something that sounds like the looped sound of a church bell. Then suddenly a techno beat starts and it continues uninterrupted until the end of the track. Yes, I know it sounds unbelievable but that really is “Fish” in its entirety! Totally boring. Most of “21st Century” is nothing more than someone toying around with pitch-shifter effects, worthless and forgettable even as an ambient track. “Paradise (Part II)” is another track in the vein of “The Gate of Inanna” but thankfully with more variation. Musically this track is based on “Summerlands” from “Drawing Down the Moon” but the lyrics contain the line “Paradise of thy demonic host”, another nod to the past. You see, “Paradise of Thy Demonic Host” is an old Beherit track.

So let’s look at the purely ambient tracks, out of which “Tribal Death”, “Emotional Ecstasy” and “E-scape” are the most interesting ones. “Tribal Death” begins with some strange invocations from Holocausto and eerie whispers in the background. The majority of the track consists of electronic tribal music, which makes me think of some ancient tribe performing a ritual dance around the fire in their village. “Emotional Ecstasy” and “E-scape” are the best ambient tracks on the album. Most of “Emotional Ecstasy” is just simple yet nice airy keyboard soundscapes but there’s also a very dark part during which Holocausto’s narrating vocals are mixed with the sounds of a storm and church bells. This part sounds totally great and had they taken most of the music in this direction on this album it would’ve been much better. “E-scape” consists of a constant humming keyboard layer, upon which Holocausto whispers mysteriously. Maybe the name of the track refers to the use of ecstasy, or is intended to reflect feelings while under the influence of it. A very trance inducing experience indeed, that unfortunately is much too short. This track should’ve been at least 10 minutes long in order to captivate the listener properly.

“H418ov21.C” truly has the character of an in-between album, an album that could have been a lot better if more work would’ve been spent on the material. As of now, it many times feels like Holocausto took the easy way out and relied too much on repetition, which makes much of the material boring. Then again, much of ambient music is indeed repetitive and that’s also why I don’t like this genre very much. Had I been in charge of things, I would have released this as a MCD containing only “Tribal Death”, “Emotional Ecstasy”, “Paradise (Part II)” and “E-scape”.