Out Now
Pelagic Records
Words by Jimmy Glinster
I’ve been told I need to push through this review ASAP. So, here I go. I have no idea who the hell LO! are, and reading through their press release further confused the fuck out of me! Apparently, they herald the end of the existing order of things, executing crushing judgement upon those tyrants who put the poor to powder, whatever the fuck that means.
Anyway, let’s get started shall we, with Our Fouling Larder. Again, I have no idea what that means, but for some reason it brings Trump to mind. Maybe it’s just the lard bit, not sure. The song only lasts a minute or so, and I’m no wiser at the end than I was at the beginning. This is some heavy shit though.
Salting The Earth is heavy from the get-go, and I’m not too sure what to this, Metalcore maybe, Deathcore, Thrashcore? Is that even a thing, Thrashcore? Can I claim it? Fuck it, I just did! I could really do with some lyrics to read, but I think the chorus says something like “Guilty by compliance, with every voice we silence”, which leads me to believe that this may be some kind of political/social-based adventure.
Next up is Deafening Beats of Apathy, which to begin with is a slightly slower and calmer journey. It very quickly pulls its shit together and gets heavy as fuck though. I spend so much time trying to figure out what this track is about that it finishes and all I can think is, fuck that was heavy.
Hail the Rat King, and its thrashy as fuck intro. This is very much my kind of jam, even when it pulls back to drum and bass for some kind of bridge before bringing some groove into the thrash. The song then pulls back to into a slower bridge with drawn-out single guitar notes and chords which completely deconstruct the song before drawing us into its dying moments.
Title track The Gleaners is up next, and it begins with some clean strummed guitar chords and a spoken word with some kind of intellectual chitter chatter that just went straight over the top of my head apart from the end bit about finding harmony in the universe. I’m expecting shit to get heavy really quickly, but the song drags on for a little while longer with slightly heavier guitars and some grainy vocals. Eventually, it gets heavy, but not fast, and continues to drag its heels to the same beat as the intro to the track. At about 4 minutes, I realise that this a very fucking long song and that it still has at least another 4 minutes to go. At about 5 minutes, it gets a little more exciting, a little.
Hang on, let me google this. Pareidolia is the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern. The scientific explanation for some people is pareidolia, or the human ability to see shapes or make pictures out of randomness. And on that note, this song is pretty random. It’s a slow burner that for some reason reminds me of some kind of highland battle cry. I have no idea why, but that’s the specific perception I got from this random as fuck track.
Kleptoparasite, I’m not even gonna google that cause I’m pretty sure they made that shit up. Ok, I lied, I fucking googled it, and apparently it has something to do with thieving insects. I probably could have guessed that, but I dead-set thought they had just combined two words to make a cool-sounding song title. Nevertheless, the only thing thieved here is the intensity of the earlier tracks in this album combined with some haunting guitar and synth passages which continue into the following track Cannibal Culture.
Cannibal Culture dooms hard with its drawn-out vocals and ominously strummed open guitar chords. A fuzzed-out rolling bassline fills the moments of silence from the otherwise battering drums. Big song, not the fastest, but one of the heavier tracks in overall feeling and cold hard soullessness.
Fuck me, here I was thinking I’m about to wrap this up until I notice that this last track goes for 7 and a half fucking minutes. Ain’t nobody got time for that, so I finish writing this while I’m listening to it. And in doing so, I’ll borrow a line from the press release which I think sums up my experience so far and this final track fairly accurately.
“Its chaos is complete – but somehow its impact is phenomenal.”
*All reviews in HEAVY are just one person’s opinion of the album. We encourage honesty in reviews but just because our reviewer may or may not like/appreciate an album, that doesn’t mean their opinion is right! We encourage you to have a listen for yourself and make up your own minds!
