This here is a two track, 20 odd minute slab of bestial black noise from Finland. Yep you read that right; two tracks. Scary right?
Well so you know where I’m coming from, I love a good bestial racket. Been championing India’s Kapala for a while even when people asked me why I was listening to the sound of a building collapsing on a drummer, for example. Taking things to the primitive extreme can be a true catharsis. But it’s tricky walking the line between actual bestial war and just pointless noise.
First track ‘Decease The Rotten Beast’ immediately has a mix issue. Stop laughing. Even virtually zero production stuff can’t function properly if the drums are closest to the only microphone in the recording bunker. However, the great thing is Lucubration overcome this by simple fury. The riff, such that it is, just hammers its way through and rips the world a new one. The odd dip into grinding, choppy doom speed is good too, nicely jarring. Then after four minutes the drums and vocals disappear and it’s just a wall of guitar noise. No riffs, no buts. This goes on for…a while. Until said vocals and drums return at a funereal pace with feedback and a repetitive, gradually slowing chord that kind of reminds me of Gnaw Their Tongues. Thirteen minutes. The first and last part work fine, the middle bit not so much, sounding more like they cut and shut two tracks together with that middle as the dodgy welding. But seriously on the whole not bad as the attitude and primitive malevolence come through like black blood soaking sack cloth.
Second track is the title track and….er…fuck me; that’s keyboards! And a low distorted background riff and slow tortured vocals. Imagine Corrupted doing dungeon synth…yeah, hard isn’t it but there it is. And yes it works in a weird way, like watching some medieval kingdom being devoured by an elder god.
It’s certainly an odd release, and intriguing. The difference between the two songs raises questions about their direction but I would love to see how they would incorporate both approaches into a longer work because…because despite that dodgy mid-section I really like this. I do.
Really want to hear more from this peculiar project.
I must be insane.
(7/10 Gizmo)
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