Teach Me to Live That I Dread the Grave as Little as My Bed

A funeral sludge doom duo formed in London this year, Locusts and Honey just put out their debut studio recording "Teach me to live that I dread the grave as little as my bed" this month. Tomás Robertson plays all instruments and composed the music and Stephen Murray performs vocals and wrote the lyrics for the one-track release. At just over 28 minutes in length, "Teach me to live …" is bound to be as much a confronting and depressive affair, especially with a title that equates death and sleeping to live as little different from each other, as it is heavy and pounding, and perhaps oppressive in sound and atmosphere as well. And indeed, on first hearing it is a mighty beast, filthy and crusty in sound and texture, with a very heavy and overpowering atmosphere that's also so caustic that sound burns in it and Murray's voice and throat may well end up corroded if he spends too much time in it beyond half an hour.

After a delicate and gentle though foreboding introduction on solo guitar, the full force of LaH falls upon us and the heavy crunching, grinding monster of burning lava guitars surges forth and buries all in its path while percussion stays in its time-keeping duties and Murray emerges muttering and growling from the monster entity. His vocals can be hard to make out beneath the acid grind and bleak-toned slashing riffs, and when this work gets a physical release – it will be released on cassette by Under The Dark Soil, a UK-based label – we should hope that printed lyrics are included with it.

For the first third of the track – incidentally the entire work is divided into six chapters - the music is pounding and repetitive, increasing in intensity and revealing more horror from within its black noise depths. It goes through a bleak blackened droning noise industrial ambient interlude behind which ghost voices may be faintly detected. For some listeners this will be the most frightening part of the recording as the swirling rotation can leave them feeling nauseous and unsupported. When the funeral doom reasserts itself, it's ugly and clunky and it lurches and jerks forward with crashing riffs and beats. Another drone noise ambient detour takes us into a strange and unnatural world where the black depths appear unusually clear, yet the shrill droning tones warn that more punishment is to come.

The climax of the music comes in its fifth part "Traitor to Love", a hellishly noisy sludge doom episode in which at last Murray's vocals finally erupt from under the music's crushing weight and can be heard in all their snarling malevolence. The storm continues to boil and roll about until the last few moments when it slowly though uneasily dies down to a quieter but still troubling conclusion.

Much of the music is repetitive, droning and noisy but there's a steady evolution from when it awakes to the overpowering and terrifying monster it becomes. Passing through its various droning stages as a caterpillar does to become a butterfly or a moth, with moments of quieter noise drone in-between the juggernaut doom passages, the music is very focused and does not stray from its predetermined life-cycle path. It often sounds as much noisy and industrial as it does crusty doom and the production on this recording is almost an instrument in its own right, in the way it enhances the noisier, dirtier aspects of the music. Elements within the music – Murray's vocals in the later parts, the gentle acoustic guitar solos, the atmospheric synth wash background – can be very clear and clean even when the rest of the music is bitingly corrosive.

The whole recording sounds very much like a soundtrack to an imaginary film with a distinct plot and perhaps an open-ended conclusion. Transitions are smooth and the energy and momentum throughout the track flow just as smoothly and well even as the music changes. Performances are tight yet there is room for some experimentation and improvisation. If Locusts and Honey maintain this level of thoughtful song-writing and performing on their next couple of releases, they'll truly be a force to reckon with. A full-length album that might be a masterpiece or close to being one can't be far away.