I'm not overly familiar with Lock Up's previous efforts, but having seen them live I had a good idea of the furious crust/grind onslaught I would be letting myself in for with their third full-length, 'Necropolis Transparent'. Essentially it sounds like more recent Napalm Death, albeit with occasional blackened touches courtesy of Anaal Nathrakh, perhaps unsurprisingly given that members Shane Embury and Nick Barker have both filled in live for Nathrakh in the past, and I half expected to discover that the sadly departed Jesse Pintado had been replaced on guitars by Mick Kenney. The space is instead filled by one Anton Reisenegger, on loan from a number of Chilean death/thrash bands, whilst Tomas Linberg is back with his trademark unhinged barks.
There's no intro and no padding of any kind between tracks, just salvo after salvo of savage, breakneck grind hurling along at a full-pelt, chaotic gallop, repeatedly obliterating the senses across tracks with an average length of about 2 minutes. It's hugely intense, and whilst wholly familiar sounding it nevertheless remains both gratifyingly crushing and consistently engaging. It was never about to be an exercise in innovation, after all.
Granted, the tracks all tend to follow a very similar framework, but there's still plenty to hold the interest in amongst the whirling maelstrom; songs will drop into fat, crusty half-time bridges (think Napalm Death's 'At The Edge of Extinction') or suddenly fire off an overpowering, blazing guitarline of the kind Nathrakh do so well, such as on 'Through The Eyes of My Shadow Self', which goes so far as to introduce a Mayhem-like feel into the proceedings with its freezing, cacophonous blasts of riffage. The title track meanwhile works in a clinical, death metal stomp in Decapitated vein, but the vast majority of the album's arrangements recall Napalm time and time again.
To criticise 'Necropolis Transparent' for its lack of experimentalism would be to completely miss the point however. As a no-bullshit grind album it works just fine, bursting with a ferocious energy and immensely tight, endlessly hook-laden arrangements which are ideally suited to Lindberg's deranged and acerbic howls. Guaranteed to take your face clean off.
http://www.myspace.com/lockup
Ross Taylor
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