Swedishconstruct
I paid my
attention to this band last year while they were releasing „Chapel of a
Lifeless Cult” together with another German death metal group Chapel of
Disease. To put it briefly, it was a
kind of a wonderful time machine that took me straight into the beginning of
the nineties. This year the German metallers decided to unleash their second
album “Godconstruct” and after first listening to it, my basic conclusion
concerned… geography. Yes, I’m damn right, because Lifeless moved their home
from Dortmund to Sweden. Quite an impossible
drift? Not for them. The band serves hundred-percent Swedish death metal sucked
from such parents like Dismember (mainly!), Entombed and Carnage. The lactation
was really effective, because both the producer and the band managed to restore
a characteristic sound. The sound I loved at first seconds…
Of course it is known that good sound is
nothing when music sucks, but fortunately Germans created a really ass-kicking
slab of death metal. The album couldn’t have better opening sounds, because during
“Praeludium: Endzeit” I can hear some very interesting, clean vocal parts (Latin
church chants?) supported by thrilling keyboards, then it passes on into the title
track decorated by absolutely astonishing guitar patent with church bells. Man,
I felt almost the same magic as many, many years ago while listening to such
memorable killer songs like “Dismembered” or “Dreaming in Red”, to name a few.
First minute goes by, and fast structure takes over the control with blast beasts
doing a real sonic massacre and making this song absolutely classic piece of Swedish
metal in my vast collection. The next thing worth mentioning is a slow down
tempo starting after about the fourth minute: let me be damned if I cannot hear
Dismember here! This is a real reincarnation of the gods! For sure this song is
a fundamental unit in Lifeless music, but after many listenings to “Godconstruct”
as a whole, I can frankly declare that other songs aren’t maintained on such a
splendid level.
Yes, no splendid
level definitely, but good performance is obvious and Swedish metal way in
every aspect of music. Just take a song called “Sworn to Death” which is a kind
of a tribute to the Swedish scene. Fast insight into the lyrics and the secret
is revealed. Or “Moribund” with well known bizarre melodic tunes and a guitar
lead in the vein of Desultory which possessed my senses at once. Another
positive aspect coming from “Godconstruct” is the lack of boredom. Germans
smartly change song tempos, from slow, almost doomish structures (e.g. the
beginning of title track and “The Truth Concealed”) to fast cannonades
appearing on the whole album, sometimes supported by merciless blast eruption
(“Godconstruct”, “Moribund”, “Reconquering the Soul”). Only aforementioned “Sworn
to Death” has rather not so fast construct(ion), vocally this track is also
quite different from the rest, due to the presence of two guest persons: Sven
Gross (Fleshcrawl) and Mark Friedrichs (Selfdevoured). With Marc vo-kills they
really did a good job. Counting all good points coming from the album, I have
to mention about the last track called “Perdition of the Whore” which is an extremely
brutal piece of death metal containing everything I wrote about the Lifeless
music earlier. Fast, sense-crippling, sincere. And this perfect (!) ending of
the song with some piano sound… Germans really stapled the entirety
successfully. I am impressed.
Thinking
about the overall mark, I have to point to one more thing. Just take a look on
the front cover with two priests giving you the invitation for the solemn mass
of death, for sure it is in close union with the opening prelude I’ve already
written about some words earlier. Returning to the musical content, sure that I
need to deal with the next crew executing well known sounds, recorded twenty
years earlier. One can say that Lifeless is another boring outfit using the
same music and emotions to cheat the listener, another band that flows with
present-day trends. The latter will shout without any hesitation: I simply love
this way of (old) death metal! As you probably can guess, I’m this latter freak
of nature and I worship this kind of music. Listening to “Godconstruct” is like
a revival of my old memories concerning such albums as “Hand Left Path”, “Like
an Ever Flowing Stream” or “Indecent & Obscene”. So, can I write: Dismember
is dead, long live the Lifeless metal? Why not? Even my beloved Desultory seems
to be buried now. I know that each day is attacked by new albums with a Swedish
stamp, many young bands honestly praise old gods and in my opinion it is good
for the scene. For sure “Godconstruct” is the better kind of it, and I hope it will
be some kind of tidbit for old maniacs. Simply it is a very good slab of
unmerciful tunes. Anyway, what kind of music can be played by the crew with
such a band’s name?
So… are you
sworn to (metal of) death?
88/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli
(previously written for Encyclopaedia Metallum, on June, 2013)
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