Sjukdom

A much darker and more metal-sounding album than previous ones, "Sjukdom" sees the band maintaining its consistency as suppliers of depressive metal with a melodic pop bent. The metal part tends more towards thrash and a bit of death metal lite on tracks like "Svart Galla", "Led by Misfortune", "Totus Anctus" and "Karma" among others but apart from this and some ambient interludes that drop into a lot of songs unexpectedly, "Sjukdom" isn't a major musical advance for Lifelover and features as much catchy pop as the other albums. There's still plenty of black metal roar in the buzzing guitars and the solo piano tickling is still plaintive and doleful. Though the music is hard-edged enough from the melodic thrash that occasionally pushes Lifelover close to Metallica territory, the band's sound is very clean and clear.

Perhaps the best thing about "Sjukdom" is the vocals which are wild, hoarse and gabbling, as though the singer - there may be more than one singer at work here - was becoming mentally unhinged and disordered. On "Totus Anctus" and "Becksvart Frustration", the singing comes close to death metal gruff in line with the songs' angry riffing. On other tracks the voices can be ragged and desperate as if the vocalist is afraid of falling permanently into madness. Then there's "Horan Hora" where the cookie monster soundalike singing veers towards bombastic grandstanding and puts the whole song in danger of falling into camp.

Most songs are short and never really seem to develop much. Definite moods and atmospheres that might be associated with particular tracks and make them stand out are never realised as a result. The music gallops along at more or less the same pace when some songs should be slow to allow the despair and blackness of a depressed person to be savoured by listeners. A lot of found sounds and spoken voice recordings appear on tracks throughout the album but I sometimes get the impression that the "experimental" non-music elements are included simply to spice up the music and compensate for the lack of very distinctive riffs and melodies, not because they're essential to the songs and are a natural outcome of them. Songs often carry on for a while then stop suddenly for a radio recording or an ambient interlude to drop in which is why I get this niggling feeling. There's a bit of coolness, a kind of distance in the music, that seems to stop Lifelover from being really involved in the subject matter of their songs - sure, there's plenty of moaning, howling and screaming in several tracks and the music can get very angry but the emotion doesn't come over as really heartfelt or wrenching. There's plenty of grit but there's also a kind of sterility in the recording.

Not many songs stand out but I single out "Homicidal Tendencies" for its heavy thrashy quality and the wild singing, "Utdrag" for being the only track with a loner urban-blues desolation mood and "Bitterljuv Kakofoni" which is a quietly guarded and suspenseful piece with guitars way down in the mix and a drumbeat rhythm that perhaps should be a bit quieter and more muffled.

After hearing four Lifelover albums including this one, I see my wish that one day Lifelover would throw away their attachment to pop songs and just let rip with flowing black metal / post-rock / bluesy urban music with long howling voices, everything improvised with no straining for catchy hooks but just pure raw playing, must remain unfulfilled. Come on guys, you've already shown across several releases that you're good musicians with good ideas, now just go out on a limb and jump for it!