Laster’s previous and third album “Het Wassen Oog” (2019) impressed me greatly. Black, atmospheric and experimental in a way that different styles were infused but all haunting, spooky and strong on deep psychological disturbance. The Dutch outfit are clearly a band with a wide range of communicable as well as twisted ideas, and so I greatly looked forward to this follow-up.
The air is filled with high intensity darkness. The familiar ghostly vocals are superimposed upon a sinister black metal riff before the pace picks up and the scene is deafening. That’s the title song. “Kunstlicht” (Artificial Light) is similar, pressing its point home in heavily eerie scenes amid theatrically enunciated vocals. The song sets off in a melodic way, always sounding tense. The irregular style which somehow makes sense and certainly keeps us on our toes strangely reminds me of Leprous. I found this album more direct in style than “Het Wassen Oog” whose black metal and avant-garde atmosphere I compared to Enslaved and Asgaard. A jazzy discordance marks “Poetische Waarheid” (Poetic Truth) and a return to the odd and the unusual. It’s a song, but pleasingly distorted by an avalanche of sounds and abnormal patterns. These airy vocals have a 90s post-punk aura about them. “Poetische Waarheid” lifts off into an exciting final section, before the slow, invasive beat of “Wachtmuziek” (Guard’s Music) takes over. I expected something to happen but the beat goes on and hypnotises us without doing anything more. “Achterstevoren” (Backwards) is quite harsh, pumping on remorselessly and punctuated by a spoken section before a rise in energy, accompanied by a vocal reminiscent of Talking Heads. Musically it’s heavy and complex. In ambiance I am reminded now of Atrox. The common element is the surreal and darkly shadowy world to which we are subjected. It is like theatre. The vocalist preaches coldly as the black metal rhythm pours out of “Stegen Spiegel”.
I didn’t find much continuity between the songs, so was coerced into regarding them on their own merit. “Vorm Alleen” starts like second wave black metal with its almost happy beat but transforms or even descends into managed cacophony and chaos. The beat returns upon a break, and the song resumes breezily. “Onzichtbare Muur” (Invisible Wall) is more urgent, both in black metal output and vocal angst, broken up by a creepy crawling Dark Fortress like section. “Afgelopen Tijd” (Past Time) at first sounds like Edwyn Collins singing in a club on Copacabana beach. The skies inevitably darken and although the rhythm keeps going, a mass of sounds and heaviness fill the space. Black metal directness cuts in. Away goes “Doodgeboren” (Stillborn). A hardcore chorus is not what you’d expect but this is Laster. The instrumentalists blaze away in a forward direction regardless. After keeping us on tenterhooks, the anticipated explosion occurs and oh so heavily those instrumentalists destroy everything around them before the ghoulish vocalist and his hardcore mates have their say in among this firepower. A tense build-up leads to an atmospheric finale. Thanks to its structure and development “Doodgeboren” made my mental juices flow in a way that most of the preceding songs hadn’t.
I found “Andermans Mijne” (Someone Else’s Mine) harder to follow than “Het Wassen Oog” and less eccentric but this is only speaking relatively. It’s a difficult album, which is to be expected of a band which works outside the box. This means that I never found my way with it. Although some of the songs were conventional in pattern, again relatively speaking, I couldn’t grasp the totality of it and its atmosphere. Without doubt it’s expression in an extreme way, and once again I credit Laster for their refusal to observe boundaries.
(7.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
Leave a Reply