Lifvsleda
Det Besegrade Lifvet

“Keeping consistent with the strident foundation laid forth by their debut EP, Lifvsleda's Det Besegrade Lifvet features nine tracks of wild, raw, and absolutely brilliant black metal in the vein of the early Nordic scene. Once again partly recorded out in the woods, in uttermost isolation, during the ongoing plague, you can truly feel the atmosphere of this album, and the stench of something old and rotten that has been dug up and resurrected. And despite it being the band's debut album, Det Besegrade Lifvet evinces an ancient wisdom, an archaic splendour wrought from turbulence and times of conflict – days when black metal didn't mean just posting photos of one's shiny, new record collection on social media. No, the members behind Lifvsleda have been involved in the real black metal scene, in one way or another and in various constellations, since its glorious beginning. Who they specifically are matters not.” That is what the press material thinks.

On that subject I have to wonder about the plague reference, the plague is a bacterial disease and the only thing it has in common with covid19 is that it is a zoonotic disease. And does the text mean that they dug up the plague? you know it isn’t a dead disease, there are about 600 cases a year in the world and 1-17 a year in the USA according to the CDC. Covid is a pandemic but the plague is something that is much worse, covid has a mortality rate of under 1%, and the plague, if treated, kills about 10% and untreated between 50% and 100% depending on what sort you get. Lifvsleda means sort of Life Tedium or something similar, so mental illness is the band’s forte, it probably has more or less the same mortality rate as covid so it was fortunate that they isolated themselves in the forest for recording.

And it sounds like this one was recorded in the forest; the sound is cheap and murky black metal with typical black metal grunts and gruffs, murky cave kind of sound. They claim in the press material that they are part of the real black metal scene, if that is defined by the numerous really bad bands out there, they certainly fit that bill. There are no fresh ideas here and nothing that sets them apart from everything else in the primitive kind of black metal, although the white cover might not be too common, and their logo is better than much black metal. That statement about how they claim that it matters not who the members of the band are, it is because anyone could have done what they do, just abuse the instruments and sing as poorly as you can, and you are there. Tongue in cheek of course, but I do believe that the members are interchangeable between black metal guys from all over as the music is so unoriginal.

In the end I think this album is pretty meaningless, the artwork is the best – they do graphics okay so at least they have that as the music sounds like any other black metal. It is something that sucks the will of life out of you and listening to it more than once is almost torturous.

HHHHHHH