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5 out of 10
If Blade Runner is ever remade as a J-Horror film, this could very well ooze out of the woodwork as the soundtrack. Lustmord has a long history of contributing aural backgrounds to films (The Crow), video games (Assassin's Creed) and adverts (er.Bud Light), so it's perhaps unsurprising that this album seems to be waiting for a suitable set of visuals to wrap its bony arms around. Despite the cadaverous imagery on the packaging and the track titles, as the album plays, the music seems to lack a certain dark something.
Testament and Element are, however, superbly atmospheric openers. The listener is immediately put to wandering deserted, demon-infested tunnels, waiting for Satan to burst through the floor. Incising the album-constant drone are the sounds of demon drills, throat-moans from the crypt and distant artillery explosions. In these two tracks, Lustmord has even managed to make shivers audible. The music plays around your head like shafts of black light, as dark pyramids rise from the earth. Unseen creatures growl. Isis' Aaron Turner adds guitar to the second track, but is completely unrecognisable - so mote it be.
If only the same could be said of the other stellar-name contributions from Tool's Adam Jones and Melvins' King Buzzo. Jones renders the twenty-two minutes of Godeater from what should have been the album's magnum opus, a dark ambient Djed, into the sound of a self-indulgent teenager playing along in his bedroom, stoned out of his face. The wonderful beginning is dissipated utterly by standard 'spooky guitar', making the track about as dark as an episode of Scooby Doo. Buzzo's contribution to Prime (Aversion) is similar - the track also has the disturbing noise of what is probably meant to be blood dripping on bones, but sounds more like someone running their hands over a computer keyboard in a dank cavern. It might give Tool fans nightmares, but everyone else will want to wait for the film. Or the advert.
Listen: www.myspace.com/lustmord
Tracklist:
1. Testament
2. Element
3. Godeater
4. Dark Awakening
5. Ash
6. Of Eons
7. Prime (Aversion)
8. Er Ub Us
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