I somehow doubt anyone knew quite what to expect from this. If you put the likes of Maniac and Kvarforth in the same room you would expect mayhem (no pun intended) and that is kind of what we got on stage when Skitliv performed live for the first time and in doing so put down what would be turned into part live and part studio release ‘Amfetamin.’ This new release is the first real taste of a full length album and when I say taste it does leave an incredibly foul one lingering with you, a bit like that feeling you get putting incredibly powerful and caustic bass speed cut with Christ knows what on the tip of your tongue. Joining the terrible twosome is Icelander Ingvar also of Sehnsucht, Dag Otto of Haust on drums and Sid Delicious on ‘everything else’ which could equate to the bands dealer perhaps. Trish, Spacebrain and assorted other collaborators have now gone and one gets the impression this could be a constantly rotating line-up. Oh there are a few famous others appearing and we will come to them in turn.
‘Luciferon (Intro)’ is subtle electronic noise with quiet background talking and at over 5 minutes goes on far too long for its own good and unsettles the listener as, I am sure it is intended to in the process. ‘Slow Pain Coming’ does just that, this is doom laden and crawling on hands and knees and intrudes like the first touch of a week long migraine. This and next number ‘Hollow Devotion’ featuring Gaahl on vocals put you in the zone and a downer one it is. Vocally I am reminded of Necrophagia and the evil vile shit spewed out in tribute to August Underground on the Ravenous album ‘Blood Delirium.’ Maniac really delivers his parts with a rasping and blood gurgling nastiness about them and this is nastyfuckedupgrimblacksludgedo)))m if any poseur out there needs it to be given a tag.
I love the spoken word part at the start of the title track it kind of sums up the misanthropy behind the whole project as well as reminding of Maniacs fantastic oration on ‘Grand Declaration Of War.’ The track does not exactly pick up a gear, it’s still ultimately doomed but it does have a deranged urgency about it. The unmistakable tones of another collaborator offer an English mad-dog eccentricity to ‘Towards the Sea of Loss (Vulture Face Kain).’ David Tibet is on fine form here, distinguished and barking and about all that can upstage them is the arrival of an actual rhythm from the drum department as the song goes almost into a canter for the first time on the album around Maniac’s vomited ruminations. It’s all eerily disconcerting really and a grim atmosphere courses slowly through the albums 8 tracks but the stinking shit left foully festering on top of the pile of dung comes with Attila joining in on last track ‘ScumDrug.’
Hopefully this is an album that all the black metal fanboys and hip scenesters out there will buy and hate and they won’t be able to take listening to it, hell some of the kvlt kvnts out there may even top themselves on listening to it. The label proudly states in normal over the top fashion that ‘Skandinavisk Misantropi’ will change your life but fuck that, hopefully it might just change your death.
http://www.myspace.com/skitliv777
