Profanatica - Sickened by Holy Host EP (2012)

If sickness were a mental care institution, then Paul Ledney would be the chairman of said institution: at least until he had swindled all the drugs for his personal use and been terminated. Responsible for not one, but TWO of the most grating and unforgiving black metal bands in this country, his one way voucher to Hell has already been paid for six hundred and sixty sixfold. But he's still not through with the rest of us. Very often, in discussions on the 'value' or 'validity' of USBM in the broader context of a world that seems to partially shun it, I will offer Ledney's canonical blasphemies up as direct evidence that we have birthed what are indisputably some of the most repulsive and intimidating sounds out there. Disgusting Blasphemies Against God, mother fuckers. Dethrone the Son of God. Your move, universe.

Sickened by Holy Host is not a new Profanatica full-length, more of an experience so nice that they decided to vomit it forth twice. Basically a new EP's worth of material, recorded in two phases, one with a session musician and the other with long term collaborator John Gelso. The point is to write new material for both 'era's of the band, one in the early 90s and the latter more streamlined with the style of their 21st century full-lengths. It's a clever idea, sort of a means by which to exist in two separate timelines, one that should have ended and the other set in the present, but I'm going to be honest: aside from the obvious differences in production, I was not able to distinguish a huge difference between the two. The first session is noisier to the point that my ears were ready to explode from the dense brutality of the bass tone, while the second is far more gritty and atmospheric due to the more ominous breadth of the vocals. Otherwise, though, it's not a whole lot different.

Profanatica function of the sheer hatred and momentum of their sound, and the raw primacy of the riffing construction. One could make an argument that they're just as much a death metal band for using such corpulent, evil tremolo riffing, but the vocals and lyrics place is a bit further into the blackened category. Hellish sacrilege is par for the course, with little lyrical deviation, and the guitars so voluminous that they nearly burst from the recording. A song like "Holy Trinity Done" is a perfect example of what this band does right, blitzing the shit out of the listener so hard that he'll defecate pentagrams at his next pitstop. However, don't mistake this band for something entirely one-track in execution, they are capable of slowing down to a sludgy crawl (bridge of "Holy Trinity Done") or ripping out unadulterated old school death which rivals the most cavernous nostalgia maniacs you've heard in recent years.

In order to sweeten the deal even further, Hell's Headbangers has seen to supplement the CD version of this double LP release with the live 2008 rehearsal sessions that were released in 2010 on three 8" records as The Grand Masters Session. Basically a mix of newer and older material like "Conceived with Sin", "Once Removed Savior" and a huge 5-track medley cast in a corpulent, entertainingly irascible feed that's honestly quite comparable to their studio output. If you're into black metal recordings at their most raw, authentic and punishing, and you're into the pestilent, primordial Profanatica demos or comparable stuff like early Beherit, then I've no doubt you're going to feast on this as you would entrails. To its credit, it doesn't sound like shit at all.

Sickened by Holy Host isn't perfect, but it's at least enough to tide us over until the following full-length, while granting us a few new brutes to split our skulls open to. Black Cult Ejaculate indeed. A gloryhole for the leprous.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

http://www.myspace.com/profanatica

Profanatica - Disgusting Blasphemies Against God (2010)

Along with the more experimental Havohej, Profanatica has long been one of the primary vehicles for American cult musician Paul Ledney. Though the project was assembled 20 years ago, there was a near decade of silence on this front. Only in recent years has Ledney got around to releasing this aural sacrilege in proper album format, first with the Profanatitas de Domonatia debut in 2007, and now with its not so subtly titled successor Disgusting Blasphemies Against God. However, the style remains quite the same, with a slightly more thundering bass in the mix, but a similar scatological black humor to its ten raging acts of theological incineration.

I'll point out that you might not want to listen to this sophomore at full blast unless you are planning an end of days party, because its violent and raucous, noisy and loud to the degree that you will develop a raging headache within a handful of tracks if you're not prepared for the onslaught about to manifest through your speakers or headset. John Gelso's bass tone is enormous to the point of nearly digesting the entire mix, and the guitars used simply to complement this central juggernaut with bleeding lines that descend from Virgin sounds. The writing is extremely basic, and far from unique in the note selection, but these are not virtues in the sadistic abscess of Paul Ledney's imagination. Instead, he promises naught but punishment, black metal that could have been written in the dawn of humanity with primitive instruments and dinosaur bones for drum machines, great lizard skins thawed and stretched into strings for the guitars, the vocals dripping fresh kill for the tribe.

Best of all would be the pacing here. It starts off fairly fast with the unapologetic "Black Cum", and proceeds to slow to a crawl with "Pious Piece of Shit", down-pitched vocals planted directly in your cranium with a hell-spiked boot-sole. As evil as this one might seem, the album grows even darker, as if in sequence, through "Christ's Precious Blood Poisoned", which emits bass tone so goddamn similar in texture to molasses that you get stuck in it, struggling to break free before the blasted, mechanical outbreak that decapitates you where you stand. Profanatica continues to beat this drum of almost moronic, neanderthal aggression through such poetically penned public service announcements as "Smashing Religious Fucking Statues", "Fuck the Blood of the Lamb", "No Trumpet Shall Sound" and "Angel With Cock", each a primitive but poignant piece of excrement slowly roasted over the inevitable open fires of hellish ovens to which this pair of Satan's seedlings are surely bound. Of special note is the haunting "Covered in Black Shit", with a massive grinding guitar tone and disgusting vocal wrath.

You do not listen to an album such as this for its nuance or any semblance of melody, you listen to it because its one of the most evil emissions of modern man, thrusting our base instincts back a minimum of 20-30 centuries in time. Like most of Ledney's music, black metal is only the starting point. Sure, you can hear hints of primitive black, death, grind and doom forefathers in the delivery, but its elevated to such a barbaric level that it becomes a pretty unique platter of Cro-Magnon, Christ-stabbing splatter, so dour and filthy that you feel soiled just for being in the same room with the goddamn disc... There are occasions where the tracks will become somewhat redundant or repetitive, and the riffs are enormously simple though strong in atmosphere, but these are small complaints when leveled against the utter crucifixion that is Profanatica's second sacrifice to the lords of the pit.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

http://www.myspace.com/profanatica