Genres are dumb. The idea that you need to be able to fit music into hyper specific categories is stupid and it ultimately makes the listening experience worse. While that is what I believe, it is also my excuse to say I’ve got no clue how to describe this album. Nebala’s debut album Lustuz Laþu Wōþuz Alu is weird. Really, really weird. And it’s awesome. Nebala is a new solo project from Jonas Lorentzen, former lead singer of the Norwegian band Heilung. However, this new album is entirely different from his former band. Each word in the album title represents sex in some way or another. Lustuz represents lust and desire. Laþu (or lathu) represents broken hearts and unrequited love. Finally, Wōþuz Alu (or woduz alu) represents ecstasy. Does this definition fit with the music? I have no clue, as while there are lyrics, I’ve got no idea what language they’re in.
This album creates an atmosphere like no other I’ve heard. The mood constantly changes from track to track. The first track “Alagabia” is deep and dark, with a strange horn blaring throughout. The immediate next track “In Raurani” changes gears almost entirely. While the first few of minutes of the track follow the same deep dark vibes of the previous track, it then switches into a loud chorus of chanting with heavy drums backing it. Track 4 “Laþu” while maintaining the same kind of deep dark sound, uses it in a far more frantic way with fast hand drums to add a sense of tension and stress, not to mention the bit about three and a half minutes into the song where everything stops except for the drums and a few seconds later weird wind instrument sounds come in but only for a moment. It feels like you’re being chased through the woods by a monster that a cult summoned. But that’s not even the climax of the album, no, that comes in track six “Ant Mér Sjalfri Þér”
Track six gets its own paragraph, just to deconstruct it, this one is wild. The song starts off fairly simple with a mysterious horn and distant throat singing, it stays like this for about the first minute and a half until the music is silenced by the ring of a Tibetan Singing Bowl, and suddenly chanting starts. In the beginning of this chanting section there are no instruments to start off with, but they slowly come in, they sound like wind chimes clattering against each other. The chanting goes on for another minute or so before it stops. After the chanting stops someone else starts speaking, in a raspy whispered voice, this goes on for about a minute before it ends and then the drums come in again. They’re slow but with them comes more throat singing, this time it’s different though, they sound darker, less welcoming. The drums slowly get faster as the throat singers start singing higher and higher, one of them stands out, a pained yell, slowly getting louder and louder as a horn blares like an alarm and then a chorus of chanting starts. A raspy growly kind of chanting, malicious chanting, and then, a guttural scream erupts, a tortured scream. The chanting continues with horns blaring in the background. The scream stops but only for a moment, as it once again spouts out from the chanting. The chanting doesn’t stop and neither does the screaming, until one final scream ends the track.
This album is a mind-bending masterpiece that feels timeless, I don’t think this album will age. I could probably listen to this album 10 years from now and feel the same way about it then than I do now. This album is long but do not let the run time fool you, you’ll come out the other end feeling great.
(9/10 Dexter Grahame)
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