lifelover - pulver (2006)

Lifelover - Karlek- Becksvart Melankoli

Lifelover - Nackskott

Lifelover
Stockholm, Sweden
Pulver (GoatawaRex)
http://www.lifelover.se
RIYL: Joyless, Amesoeurs

this is the first album by one of my favorite bands, Lifelover. they are pretty hard to catergorize- they come pretty strongly from a black metal direction, but their music also includes elements of goth, shoegaze, maybe like mid-90's indie shit, movie samples, found sound... it all comes together into what I guess some people (or at least someone on wikipedia) call "depressive rock". still, that's a good description- i've spent plenty of late-late-late nights jamming this stuff before the sun rises. its interesting to me that metal has assimilated all different sorts of music, yet black metal remains pretty formulaic (ignoring bands like Xexyz or Sigh or Dodheimsgard...wait, maybe this isn't a good point). well at any rate, black metal and pop don't cross over too often- Lifelover, Amesoeurs, Alcest, Joyless and Woods of Infinity are I think all of the black metal/pop bands (it should be noted that, I believe, three of those bands are or have connections to the guitar player Neige). in this case, while the music is pretty poppy and catchy, the songs can also be dirge-y and formless. the end result is something very compelling, easy to listen to, and yet it never really takes shape. the fact that the songs are interrupted and chopped up (with dialogue, children's songs, and more) makes the music seem particularly unhinged. one final note, this album is different from the band's subsequent albums Erotik and Konkurs in that they are still using a drum machine, as well as the fact that this album is relatively more "black metal"- giving it a more violent mood than the following albums, as if the band hadn't yet been entirely crushed by depression.

Lifelover - Nackscott
Lifelover - Karlek-Becksvart Melankoli