Konkurs

Lifelover delivers a very bleak view of modern urban life and relationships in Sweden and its effect on human psychology in "Konkurs". Previous album "Erotik" had moments of humour and lightness and sometimes the music there suggested hopeful optimism. Here on "Konkurs" we seem have mental torment and confusion trying to find relief which all too often turns out to be temporary and leads to more despair. Not having an English translation of the Swedish lyrics to hand, I will concentrate on the music from here on.

The music is urgent and brisk in a dark, hellish kind of way. The Lifelover style is very distinctive: clean-cut smart riffs with even the black metal elements that do appear (not very much) sounding sharp and clean at their supposedly buzziest, medium-fast rhythms, piano melodies that often run counter to the rest of the music and interludes of field recordings or ambience when you least expect them. Some songs like "Konvulsion" and "Narcotic Devotion" probably could be slower in their rhythms so that in "Konvulsion" the sardonically cheery accordion music that comes at the end would hit you in the face harder and in "Narcotic Devotion" the wobbliness that suggests delirium in some passages makes more of an impression. On some tracks like "Shallow" and "Mental Control Dialog", the really outstanding feature is the vocals which are full of anguish and torment and give the impression of the singer on the brink of a mental breakdown. The quaking singing sounds convincing enough without being melodramatic and strained and the bleak stark nature of the music and its pace provide a context and contrasting backdrop that reins in any tendency to overdo the histrionics.

From "Stangt P.G.A. Semester" on, the album grows colder and more downbeat, the singing can become deranged ("Bitter Reflektion" and "Spiken I Kistan") and an urban-blues desolation dominates the mood ("Stangt P.G.A. Semester" and "Mitt Annexia"). There is also more willingness to experiment with space within the music, atmosphere, field recordings and sound and a couple of tracks are instrumental ("Original" and "En Tyst Minutt") and less emphasis on strict melodic song-based musical structures.

The album is self-contained in its bleak mood, its use of alternating styles of singing (either tormented and shaky on the one hand, or alienated, indifferent and lethargic on the other) and the clean, almost smooth lines of the music. Melodies do abound but are not very catchy or bright. The tracks that attract more attention than others tend to stray from the Lifelover template: there are the melancholy piano-dominated "Original", the garage-sounding "Brand", the almost country-and-western rock of "Konvulsion" followed by the folksy ending, the squalling "Twitch" and the cheerless, solitary urban blues ambience of "Stangt P.G.A. Semester" and "Mitt Annexia". With a number of songs, the music travels a bit too quickly and briskly for listeners to soak up the mood and atmosphere so a song like "Stangt P.G.A. Semester" ends up making less of an impact than it should, plus there is an annoying lead guitar solo that detracts from the overall mood.

Perhaps Lifelover like their melodic and structured post-rock / black metal blend too much for them to fully exploit emotion, ambience and the potential of post-rock and black metal to contrast with and highlight strengths of each genre. Black metal provides the anger and aggression, post-rock provides an interest in ambience and mood and both genres have a history of experimentation: Lifelover could be using all of these. The musicians make a strong and consistent effort in bringing across the stresses and agonies of modern life but the result doesn't quite match their ambition. There is emotion and suffering but it's mostly all in the singing and the music isn't as intense as it could be. If they can get away from writing song-based and structured music and more into a loosely structured kind of music with an emphasis on mood, atmosphere and using the percussion as a sound generator equal to guitars, instead of the usual time-keeping and pace-setting role that it has, Livelover might hit on creating something intense and heartbreaking that does exactly what they're aiming for.