Review Summary: Until the day you die, you will always be shit.
Lifelover-Pulver
After the nineties, Norwegian Black Metal died down, with the major names drenching their sound in punk, folk, thrash, symphonic metal, or even changing their sound to ambient synth. Many "kvlt" bands started to make copies of the golden age black metal, along with a completely new legion of bands who played Post-Black Metal identical to each other, calling themselves original. Out of this mess of music came a band who didn't care about the current music scene, about being kvlt, about being original, a band who didn't care about life, really: this band is Lifelover.
Their songs written by a man calling himself "B" who always appears masked, they played a fresh new form of Black Metal becoming unintentionally original taking influences from indie, folk, surf rock, ambience, and post-punk. The band has dubbed themselves as "Narcotic Metal." Call them what you will, to me they are simply the most depressing black metal band to have ever existed. The sound is not your typical blast beats and buzzing guitars everywhere with inhuman vocals from e depths of Hell. Rather, it has very controlled, sinister drums with Melancholic guitar chords and pianos, along with very human vocals from "( )" who has one of the most emotional vocals I have ever heard. He sounds like he is in terrible pain, thus making us listeners feel the depression. Lyrically, I have heard that they speak mainly of sex, narcotics and depression however I refuse to research the lyrics as it may spoil the atmosphere, the emotions that the music makes me feel on it's own.
Other than the sound described above, expect some interludes with a child happily singing, ambient guitar passages, samples of cries and gunshots. I am convinced that this album is meant to tell a story considering the number of samples, but it does not matter to me.
The standout track is the album closer, En Sang Om Dig. The first half of the song interchanges surf-rock passages with some very dirty guitar tones with ( )'s amazing vocals soaring over. It then makes a transition to a ambient passage made up of church organs with some spoken words over it, ending with the only English sentence on the album: "Until the day you die, you will always be ***." That sentence pretty much embodies everything Lifelover is about.Â*
B never tried to be a good person, and he was not very different from his music. He was a depressed individual with no support from his family. In the end, his life was cut short by a narcotic overdose. However I have all I need from Lifelover right here in Pulver.
