Promo 2005

So the story goes that Kim “Carlsson and Jonas “B” Bergqvist got together, self-harmed, and then did some lengthy guitar improvisations with a lot of delay and reverb, which resulted in this demo, and to be honest that’s what it really sounds like. If you’re looking for the melancholic, industrial tinged Lifelover that would appear a year later, you’ve come to the wrong place. This demo isn’t bad per say, it’s just worlds away from the direction that the band would go in on ‘Pulver’.

‘Promo’ is still very depressive, but its approach to evoking such feelings is quite different. Kim described the two tracks as “improvised misery”, and to be honest, that’s probably the best way to put it. There’s no real riffs or melodies to speak of, there’s just these atonal, off kilter sounds that creep up on you. There’s no crescendos, or grand musical gestures, just this overarching feeling of hopelessness. Lifelover would come to sound quite bipolar on their later releases, but here they conjure up a feeling of lethargy, and malaise, which is assisted by the length of each track as it just continues, showing little signs of change, weighing down on the listener.

There’s not really a lot more to say about this demo. It is exactly what it’s described as, and I can’t fault it in that regard. It does feel like a natural progression from Kim’s other band Hypothermia, and if they did continue in this vein I guess it would’ve made sense, but even though I enjoyed this demo, I’m very glad that they did decide to go in the radically different direction that they did with ‘Pulver’. I can see quite a lot of Lifelover fans being turned off by this, but I’d still recommend giving it a listen as it’s still quite interesting to hear how the collaboration between “( )” and “B” started. However, I can only really see fans of different forms of ambient music, and possibly Hypothermia really enjoying both of these lengthy tracks.