Kaldera

If there ever happens to be a back-slapping event for sludge metal, Lurk’s K. Koskinen has a good chance of taking home the accolade for best singer. He prefers a laboured yell for the most part, but screams, growls, whispers, and a special phlegmy resonance make him sound distinct all the time, not least when hurling out skewed lyrics about “Cadavers floating downstream” and “Your faith scars itself into the sacred skin.” Koskinen is the clear leader of Lurk’s jumbled sludge doom, dragging the Finnish four-piece by the nostrils as the riffing unwillingly moves onwards. You’ll not hear any riffs that you want to nod your head to, nor will you be humming much of the music after listening to Kaldera, yet the searing emotional resonance that the band get from their tortured sound is reason enough to pop on headphones, drink a pint of vodka to take the edge off, and tune into these frequencies from the edge of the abyss.

A real sense of danger and impending disaster hangs over most of the songs on this sophomore album, atmospheric elements dripping out of the crawling riffing and feeding off the same grotesqueness as the vocals. Occasionally, such as towards the close of ‘Ritual’, the ringing notes of ugly riffs mutate into a calmer version of the same thing, in the same manner that an attractive, mature stranger you meet in a bar turns into a puking emotional wreck all of a sudden – only Lurk perform the same transition in reverse, raising the hackles of suspicion on the listener’s neck. The group had already set out their stall of unfriendly slow music on the debut album, sounding little like anyone else except some tangentially related underground sludge that uses the same instrumental tones; therefore, you will feel musically isolated as you listen to most of these cuts, pulled through buildings to get from Bongripper on one side of the city to Triptykon on the other. Dislocation is key, as are a few elements of surprise, such as the suddenly emotional violin solo during ‘6 Feet, 6 Years’.

Commenting on specific features of Kaldera is rather a challenge due to its enveloping, amorphous aura. I can’t imagine anyone picking a favourite song from the 45 minute set, though it’s easy to believe that some listeners might get from beginning to end without noticing the transitions. The bandmembers all move as an undercurrent, subtly changing as the songs plough on, drum patterns and fills shifting by slow degrees into new shapes and guitar riffs repeating yet not sounding exactly the same each time. The three instrumentalists are key to building up a detailed profile for the album, playing off each other in jam-like spontaneity, while the guitar provides the most obvious highlights, ringing out uneasy melodies on ‘Rest Unitaries’ and opening ‘Below Flesh’ with a brassy tone that might be Reverend Bizarre if they were really, really paranoid.

Because of the total nature of the musical experience, you really can’t pick and choose tracks but must listen to the whole of Kaldera for the full fearsome effect. Despite coming close to doom metal on numerous occasions, only doom fans with open minds will warm to the anti-riff approach espoused on ‘Lorn’ and ‘Kaldera’, while ‘Cutting’ represents the most obvious adherence to a regular style, growling through chugs for a few minutes. Actual enjoyment, however, is not what we must seek when coming to this kind of album: instead, embracing the discomfort that Lurk generate is the only way to go, giving you all the thrills of playing with razors while fully dressed and in the bath, just without actually running any water or opening any veins. This is wrong, sick stuff done incredibly well and without hyperbole, which is a rare feat indeed.