Sjukdom

“Sjukdom” is the sixth Lifelover recording out of six. Originally released in 2011 as their fourth and last full-length, it features the return of Lifelover's trademark drum machine (the previous EP, "Dekadens", is the only Lifelover recording with a real drummer), and a band composed by B (guitars, vocals, piano, bass), ( ) (vocals) and LR (additional vocals).

"Sjukdom" is by far the heaviest Lifelover recording, almost entirely electric - while their previous efforts made large use of acoustic breaks (or even entirely acoustic songs), piano tunes, clean vocals and so on. Moreover, "Sjukdom" is also the most "professional" Lifelover album ever, with sounds that are pretty different from the raw recordings hearable on their debut album "Pulver"; the drum machine, though, is colder than ever, and it adds a general feeling of "detachment" to the whole album.

Anyways, two outstanding songs are featured on "Sjukdom": the opener Svart Galla is the first one, and it calls back the old Lifelover; even if the song is entirely electric and heavy, it makes great use of B's piano, which accompanies the guitar melody and ( )'s harsh vocals. The drum machine is pretty fast, but there is room for some changes of tempo and a nice instrumental part, which leads to a slow piano outro.

This said, the true masterpiece of the album, and of the whole Lifelover discography, is Expandera, whose touching and desperate lyrics has been written by ( ). The song follows an usual Lifelover pattern, starting with an astonishing guitar melody coupled with B's always brilliant piano, this time playing one of the most innovative and catchy melodies ever written by him. Expandera, though, features a speech (provided by some guest called P. G. on the booklet) over a slow, almost acoustic part that preludes to the resumption of the instrumental beginning of the track. At some point, before the end, we have an actual acoustic intermezzo with an intense speech (in English it would read as "so empty and cold in their ever expanding emptiness / just like the hole I carry within myself..").

Apart from these two masterpieces, the rest of "Sjukdom" is very heavy, always (except for a few songs) featuring an extremely fast drum machine - such as in Led by Misfortune, in which ( )'s vocals get close to a black metal style, or in Homicidal Tendencies, a track in which ( )'s painful screams are overwhelming, since the rest of the song features nothing of the Lifelover trademarks: no piano, no changes of tempo or abrupt swaps from acoustic to electric passages, no catchy guitar melodies. This is, unfortunately, a characteristic that spreads throughout the whole album, even if in songs like Nedvaknande we can still hear a great, swinging melody played by B's guitars.

The only instrumental track in the lot is Instrumental Asylum, and it follows at some extent the pattern of the old Original, thus repeating over and over some guitar tunes with some changes in the drum machine's layout and a nice acoustic, slow outro.

So, having written about the tracks I loved the most of "Sjukdom", we are still left with a large amount of tracks which - with the partial exclusion of the nice Karma and Resignation (which uses the melody of the old Vardagsnytt) - could be probably described as fillers, since they have no more the genius featured on the first Lifelover albums, nor they present some significant variations or inspired melodies whatsoever. Tracks like Utdrag are entirely acoustic - a rare thing in this album - but repetitive and pretty boring in the end.

"Sjukdom", though, apart from these not-so-brilliant episodes, is a great full-length among the extraordinary, wonderful and innovative Lifelover short career, and it is, in my opinion, a worthy conclusion to their career itself, prematurely interrupted due to B's tragic death some months after the release of this album. "Sjukdom" is thus recommended to everyone that loves Lifelover, but because of its heaviness, its excessive number of songs and its slight decrease of inspiration I would surely suggest to anyone who has never heard of Lifelover before to go and buy their first two full-lengths, true masterpieces of the entire musical world of the last years. After having accustomed to Lifelover's different styles and souls, for sure even "Sjukdom" will be more appreciated.