Leviathan

Photo: Album cover: True Traitor, True Whore (Profound Lore Records)

CountryUnited States
Formed1998
StatusActive
GenreBlack metal
LabelProfound Lore Records

Leviathan is the American one-man black metal project of Jef Whitehead, known as Wrest, from San Francisco, California. Active since 1998, it has released several studio albums, most recently Scar Sighted in 2015.

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Jef Whitehead began Leviathan in San Francisco in 1998, using the name Wrest. He wrote, played and sang everything himself and recorded more than a dozen demos in the project’s early years.

The first full-length albums, The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide (2003) and Tentacles of Whorror (2004), were released through Moribund Records, and the debut was recorded entirely on four-track tape.

Massive Conspiracy Against All Life followed in March 2008. After its release Whitehead set Leviathan aside for a while.

He brought the project back with True Traitor, True Whore, released by Profound Lore Records on 8 November 2011. Blabbermouth’s reviewer described it as Leviathan at its harshest and a more direct record than its predecessors. Profound Lore reissued a remastered edition in 2025 under the shortened title True Traitor.

Scar Sighted came out on Profound Lore on 3 March 2015. Produced, engineered and mixed by Billy Anderson, it received favourable reviews, and Whitehead said in an interview that the new record was not simply black metal.

Leviathan is still listed as active, with Whitehead as its only member. As of October 2026, Scar Sighted remains the most recent studio album.

Line-up: Jef Whitehead (all instruments, vocals)