Loath life, love Lifelover or Love life, hate Lifelover? Choices are to be made but as for loving both, is it at all possible? I got drawn to these eccentric Swedes as no doubt did many due to the cover of debut album ‘Pulver’ which was highly erotic and truly proved that sex sells. After that I quickly grabbed second album ‘Erotik,’ the cover of which was misleadingly not, but the job had been done by then anyway and it was the music that was doing the talking. The band are bizarre and eccentric and had a certain mystique about them and I wondered what they even looked like hiding behind initials and year dates as names. I knew that they included members of Hypothermia and Ondskapt in their ranks and then watched a video including some of the most dreadful dancing I have ever seen from a band member and wished I had kept that mystique in my head as it was all ruined now.
Never mind, they have a new album out, the title of which Sjukdom translates as “llness/sickness/disease,” and believe you me if you have ever heard the band you will no doubt be well aware that such illness is very much of the mental variety, probably a reason us depressive life loathing types find such affinity with them. Lifelover’s brand of ‘narcotic blackened rock’ starts with hugely melodic piano around buzz sawing guitars and ghostly voices. The lunatic tones of singer Kim "( )" Carlsson rasp in and the musicianship lurches drunkenly around them. It’s infectious and infected at the same time, it certainly does not sound well or quite right at all and you kind of wonder if the vocalist is restrained by a straightjacket to help him get the anguished tones across. Things are all the more garbled as we are ‘Led By Misfortune’ there is a strong black n’ roll feel as this trundles away over demented barks and yaps. There is a brilliantly placed psychedelic B-movie sample before we go into what has become a quick favourite song ‘Expandera.’ Wait till you hear the sorrowful piano rapture flowing through this, it is so beautifully depressive it almost has you grabbing for the razor blades. It is no surprise that ‘Homicidal Tendencies’ are definitely not suicidal and this is the fastest madcap gallop of the album and its shortest song, spat out on a bed of chugging guitars and tortured screams. There is a strong post rock and even Indie feel about things as we progress, this is no case of textbook black metal and never has been with this lot. Some of the jangling melodies on Resignation and on other parts of the album actually have me thinking of another rather odd band from my past, the equally baffling but brilliant Half Man Half Biscuit!
Lifelover keep you on your toes and you never know where you are going to be taken next, it’s a bit like musical LSD as they drop in a sample here, the sound of a can being opened there a snatch of country and western guitar twang and then plunge the music back in. It’s all a bit confusing but then again it works as your head gets around it. Sometimes things are more structured and there are definitely songs here, having never seen the band live I really am intrigued to see how things translate on stage (well apart from the dancing that is).
The best way to really approach this album though is to press play, go with the flow, and see where it takes you, keeping your fingers crossed you will come out sane at the end. Of course that is if you were sane in the first place, if you were not you would probably be at an advantage. Further insight is best gained by actually listening to the music itself and if you already know the band this is the perfect continuation from their previous stuff. For some reason I have this image of a big Red Indian slowly beating time on the drums of ‘Bitterljuv Kakofoni’ prior to the asylum exploding and the lunatics flying over the cuckoos nest! Right medication time, I’m out of here.
http://www.myspace.com/lifeloverband
