Possessed of the same ability to sonically distil disdain and hatred as Neurosis, Lazarus Blackstar are a band to be approached with caution. As toxic and unpleasant as the tar and nicotine stained wall of a village pub, the band play a brand of doom so caustic the full fifty-two minutes of ‘hymns for the cursed’ is liable to make you feel physically ill. The sort of music that the uninitiated might brand an endurance test, each track represents as a challenge as the band spew out hateful, sludgy riffs and Obituary-referencing vocals with only the increasingly agitated percussion stopping the whole thing from breaking down entirely into a dense fog of Sunn 0))) worshipping sonic chaos. For those who worship at the altar of doom, however, the challenge is well worth undertaking and ‘hymns for the cursed’ is a multi-faceted assault upon the senses that sees the listener trawling the very darkest recesses of the mind with a soundtrack that threatens to unleash the apocalypse with its earth-shattering bass-lines.
Opening track ‘cold hands grow pale’ is a fine induction into the warped, tarnished world of Lazarus Blackstar, the startlingly heavy riff taking you by surprise and the vocals, torn from a shattered throat, trawl the depths with lines such as “terrified,, humiliated, dying alone; helpless, ignored, already a corpse” it is powerful, traumatic stuff, and the aural assault that accompanies the words makes it seem very real and very serious indeed. Yet there is melody, albeit buried deep in the menacing mix, and the song is far from one dimensional although it may take several listens to fully appreciate the nuances the band bring to their ultra-distorted doom attack. Indeed, for all of Lazarus Blackstar’s misanthropic malevolence, shades of Black Sabbath and My Dying Bride are both present within the band’s soupy riffs making for a violently memorable experience. ‘The self-inflicted wound’, as the title implies, is equally visceral in its approach, the guitars a grinding, flesh-reaving menace raving in the dark whilst the vocals teeter on the edge of death metal, only to be swallowed once more by the blackened abyss from which they spawned as the percussion piles up and the riffs change gear from searing assault to doom-laden trudge. It is compulsive listening, impossible to tear yourself away from even whilst the overwhelming volume and power threatens to destabilise your senses for good.
‘My world… My way’ (a cover of influential hardcore band Infest) is a song so utterly devoid of humanity it gets its own paragraph. A track so sombre you can imagine it being used as Stalin’s funeral march, the dread inspired by the hulking riffs is far from alleviated by the opening line “I’ll ride this black horse until I crash into the waves” and as the music washes over you you’re hard pressed to dispel the image of death, sat atop his pale horse beckoning you into his grasp as the world fades to ashes behind you. This is doom at its most potent, and as the bass throbs and swirls out of the speakers, beset from all sides by the scarifying screams of Mikhell you’re reminded of the sonic might of Khanate – no small achievement for any band.
‘Crawl’ lives entirely up to its title, Lazarus coming on like Black Sabbath on Ketamine, the guitars a vortex of despair sucking light and life into its heart of darkness, extinguishing everything positive with a remorseless inevitability that exemplifies the very sound of despair. This virulent nihilism carries over and, if anything, intensifies on the title track, a sprawling epic that pushes the boundaries of tolerance with its multi-layered screams and crushing sonic weight combining the power of Isis with the gloom of early Paradise Lost. ‘At the foot of the coldest mountain’ slows the pace to a terrifying crawl, the protagonist pulling himself on shattered stumps through the filth and waste of his own degradation towards the mouth of the abyss and then the album draws to its close with the parting sentiment that ‘no light can reach these depths’ – an apt metaphor for the album as a whole, so utterly draining is the experience of allowing this sonic treacle to invade your soul. As Mikhell’s voice takes on the world weary aspect of a man who has seen, done and experienced more over the course of centuries than any other alive, the music pours through the speakers like molasses in winter and you can feel the weight of the music like a gravitational pull, dragging you ever deeper into the miasma of sulphur and flame.
It seems somewhat axiomatic to point out that Lazarus Blackstar’s peculiar brand of horrendousness will not suit all tastes. This is not metal to put on if you’re in need of an adrenalin fix – it is enervating, hypnotic and all consuming – but for those with a taste for doom it is surely one of the finest releases of the year. As devastatingly heavy as you could wish for, the production renders each and every riff as an earthquake, the bass as the terrifying aftershocks and the percussion the falling masonry plunging from the buildings towering above you. This is the sound of the darkness and the foetid underworld. Make no mistake that this is a bleak album, but it is also the logical continuation of the journey that Sabbath started all those years ago filtered through the icy paranoia of Neurosis and Isis and shot through with death metal. Expect no quarter for you’ll receive none, but if you’re looking for an album that more or less has the last word on doom, then look no further.
