Axioma

Formed in Portugal in 2019 by vocalist / guitarist Nekruss (who also runs the Monumental Rex label) and lyricist / songwriter Gabriel, Lacrau is an atmospheric depressive BM / doom act with an interest in death: not much surprising about that, what depressive BM or doom act isn't interested in death, except that, at the present time, Lacrau's focus is on how different cultures may view suicide or voluntary euthanasia as a selfless act that benefits communities rather than as a selfish act as usually viewed by mainstream Christianity or other major religions. On "Axioma", the debut album and recording, Lacrau tells a story based on the supposed Scandinavian custom of elderly people throwing themselves (or being thrown by their grown children, usually sons), off cliffs once they are unable to care for themselves. I say "supposed" because, as in Japan where the custom "ubasute" (meaning "abandoning an old woman" in English) was also supposed to exist, there apparently isn't much direct historical evidence that elderly people actually did commit suicide, were abandoned in forests or were thrown off cliffs, so as to spare their families the burden of care, and most references to such customs appear in folk tales or sagas.

Anyway, let's not allow the cold light of day to dash our hopes for "Axioma" and the tale it tells in blackened doom. Opening track "Premissa" displays Lacrau's instrumental wares in all their bleedingly raw and painfully grinding guitar-noise glory. At least the beats are moderately heavy rather than oppressively crushing, so that's one small consolation in this slow and mostly repetitive piece. From "Doença" ("Disease") through to "Conclusão" ("Conclusion"), the story of such a senicide starts developing in Portuguese-language lyrics delivered in a harrowing death-rasp vocal. The music ranges from surprisingly lively melodic black'n'roll in "Doença" through gloomy depressive BM on "Declinio" to straight-out melodic raw BM on "Queda" ("Fall") with a fair amount of rugged riffing in parts. If you didn't already know what the album is supposed to be about, you'd think the music here is quite uplifting, with a definite danceworthy groove. The pace is slow to medium-slow but not nearly as slow as I imagined it would be with the album's theme and style of depressive BM / doom fusion.

Come to "Veneno" ("Venom"), at last the kind of depressive BM / doom I was expecting arrives though Lacrau still can't quite leave the catchy black'n'roll style, hooky guitar melodies and potential singalong choruses behind. The music is amazingly strong and powerful even without a thundering rhythm section. The bass guitar can be heard doing its own noodly thing behind the blazing guitars. Finally, in "Conclusão", the depressive part of Lacrau's music takes over in a darkly pensive instrumental dirge where tremolo BM guitars join with blowy ambient effects in a solemn duet.

In itself, the music sparkles with energy and power on most tracks, and Lacrau has plenty of potential as a tight and technically consistent raw melodic BM unit with doom elements. It's not quite the style of music I would have expected for an album telling a story of senicide and the effect it has on those left behind by voluntary suicides – I had imagined something much bleaker and noisier, something very intense and deeply sad, with a lot of screaming and wailing vocals. The most depressive parts of the album at the beginning and end rely mostly on melodic repetition and ambient effects to achieve grim desolation but even on the last track those last flickers of life and energy in the guitar tones are still burning brightly - as though in trying their damnedest to be super-depressive Lacrau accidentally end up throwing themselves into the polarised opposite end of the mood spectrum and not realise what they've done until too late.

For an album I suspect shouldn't really be enjoyable with a strong and energetic style of music, "Axioma" is a solid debut ... for the wrong reasons.