De totem

Lugubrum's "De Totem" has been mixed very poorly (on purpose?), but the composition is excellent, unlike earlier Lugubrum-albums, which have been plain boring most of the time. The guitars on "De Totem" sometimes remind a swarm of bees with their high buzzing, drums sound like kettles, and the vocalist is screeching obscure alcohol-fueled lyrics with a high pitch and an insane voice. We even get to hear some banjo (WHAT THE HELL?) on the song "Reet Reel". Yes, banjo. And some guy apparently vomiting and laughing at the same time. I totally missed the point in that.

Unfortunately the tempo changes a lot between the tracks; some tracks are blasting, some are dragging slowly. I prefer the faster tracks, especially "Hoornkluiten", "Midgets Of Evil" and "Inner Magma". And the vocals are insane.

If you don't count in the intro (which is entitled "Intro : Beer", haha) and "Reet Reel", the banjo-vomit-interlude, the 11 songs which are left, introduces us a raw, ferocious, sometimes tediously slow, but nevertheless brutal beer-fueled black metal-album. Overall a very atmospheric album with a lot of tempo-variations. The lyrics are rather weird... But let's not allow that ruin this listening experience. Overall "De Totem" is a fucking obscure and weird album, with variating song quality. "Midgets Of Evil" blew my mind the first time I heard it, and now after about 300 listenings I still love it. And the vocals are insane.

Standout tracks : Midgets Of Evil, Inner Magma.

This CD is highly recommended (especially for drinking booze, as background music), even though I cannot give more points than 70%, because I always have to skip the slower songs on this album. But the vocals are insane. (This is a fact that _can't_ be repeated too many times in Lugubrum's case).

Oh yeah, and the re-release features 2 previously unreleased tracks, the first ("Paardeberg") featuring great brutal high-speed black metal, the other ("Nooitgedacht") being a lame instrumental with random noises.