De totem

Lugubrum don't exactly sound as they did on De Totem today, but I think this album marked the beginning of Lugubrum as a unique and rather bewildering entity within the metal continuum. It was my first taste of the band, and that taste was brought about by someone enthusiastically telling me about how "nuts" they were on this album, basically. Damn, he was right. If you follow the chronological path, you can see something is different about this one right from the start. Some sick, twisted humour seems to have erupted in the Brown Netherworld, and even the psuedonyms of the band members have been altered to reflect this. There seems to be a weird, unhealthy obsession with beer, bogs and ordure worming into everything. An album made by filthy degenerate farmers! Yeah, why not?.

The album also introduces the band's full-time drummer, Svein, who is even responsible for the layout this time round. Although he doesn't necessarily show great skill here, his addition to the band is a significant one that adds much vigour and clout to the music. There's also a new bassist, but alas, he can't be heard most of the time.

The sound on this thing is an awful, ugly racket. It's robbed of most low end; even the drums haven't got any, but the snare is a sharp and insistent crack that sounds like it's coming down a telephone line along with the destructive cymbal crashes. Oddly though, the guitar actually sounds really nice in a way; again, no bass frequencies, but lots of clear mid-range that seems deliberately designed to ensure every sneaky, perverted riff crawls and slithers into your cranial cavity. Most abrasively, though, Barditus (Pederastus!) screams, snarls and yowls his way through everything, with more force than ever, so much so at some points that you can hear distortion on the mic. The vocals are what I might call an assault, and yes, they, along with the deliberately abrasive, low fidelity sound, are going to end up trying peoples' patience, maybe especially those who heard that Lugubrum recently turned into a jazz band and want to check out some "thinking man's metal". De Totem might just have you retreating from your stereo with a dismayed look on your face, even if you're more expectant of some good, wholesome black metal.

Everything here seems delivered with the intent to be ugly, and, well, not right, but, the thing is, you have to listen up, because the riffs are great! "Darkthrone on crack", someone once said, and it ain't a bad summation. What's more, they have that kind of swingy Under a Funeral Moon swagger thing going on much of the time. But you've never heard Darkthrone with banjo, strange sonic additions (weird sucking sounds, what sounds like a coocoo clock at one point; an awesome accordion part) and with such dimented, perverse yet catchy riffing. There aren't any saxophones on this album (they'll come later!), but the extra instrumentation, mostly in the form of the banjo, which sneaks in right over the riff-work during key moments to feverishly pluck away at your sanity, really do add something to proceedings without in any sense taking away from the nastiness or rusty, stinking metal. In fact, there's a short track on here that sounds as though it were recorded outside, and Midgaars is doing a madcap frenzied reel on the banjo, while in the background you can hear a guy puking somewhere as well as someone laughing derisively. Maybe it's the result of drunken shenanigans in that sinister field from the album cover!

Repulsive though it might be, I swear these riffs have a nasty way of sticking to you. Listen to that title track. That riff there is worthy of Black Sabbath, and sounds gnarly as all hell. Check out the way "Beard of Disease" (ugh) twice drops into a killer grinding Celtic Frost-ish riff, which suddenly shows off just how downright heavy the band can be. "Udder of Death" -- that shit won't leave you, ever, if you are at all fascinated by the notion of ugly infectious music.

My favourite of these assaults are the ones I mentioned already, plus the rather monumental and fantastic closer, "Voos", which, I believe, was a part of the band's set-list for years afterward, and with good reason. You could start your journey with Lugubrum here, if you want, and follow their progression into the raw but eminently experimetnal force of today. The journey's an interesting one. You will be bemused. You will occasionally feel disgruntled or attacked. You will question your sanity as you find yoruself pulled in to some of the slimiest, yet coolest grooves in all of metal.

Lugubrum have been a big name for quite some time in the underground black metal scene. It’s their bizarre character that probably made them so succesful. Their music is best described as alcohol-fueled black metal with a subtle rustic touch.

On this disc Lugubrum shines once again. A lovely rotten, filthy, dirty record like only they can bring forth. A raw production lets the heavily distorted guitars and bass show to their full advantage. After a while it gets a bit annoying, since you seemingly hear more feedback than riffs, but this is only a minor flaw.
Most songs are very repetitive and monotonous, like true black metal is supposed to be. However, Lugubrum does bring quite a bit of variation on this record; by changing between slow and fast songs, by giving slow songs fast choruses or breakdowns (of which the titletrack is a fine example), and vice versa.
Barditus is in my opinion one of the best vocalists black metal has to offer. His squeeling and groaning sets your teeth on the edge and sounds quite down-to-earth with the little bit of reverberation used on his voice. “Ratteknaeghen” and “Midgets of Evil” are examples of songs where his shrill screams are worth noticing.
My opinion differs a bit about the instrumental part. Although the guitar is played adequatly by Midgaars and the riffs (about 4 or 5 different ones per song) are quite good most of the time, the drums on the other hand sound rather weak. I enjoyed Barditus’ drumming on Gedachte & Geheugen more than Svein’s work on this album. The double bass is hardly audible and there is just too much percussion going on. But since Lugubrum’s main attraction lies with it’s awesome riffing, this does not annoy too much.

Lugubrum's "De Totem" has been mixed very poorly (on purpose?), but the composition is excellent, unlike earlier Lugubrum-albums, which have been plain boring most of the time. The guitars on "De Totem" sometimes remind a swarm of bees with their high buzzing, drums sound like kettles, and the vocalist is screeching obscure alcohol-fueled lyrics with a high pitch and an insane voice. We even get to hear some banjo (WHAT THE HELL?) on the song "Reet Reel". Yes, banjo. And some guy apparently vomiting and laughing at the same time. I totally missed the point in that.

Unfortunately the tempo changes a lot between the tracks; some tracks are blasting, some are dragging slowly. I prefer the faster tracks, especially "Hoornkluiten", "Midgets Of Evil" and "Inner Magma". And the vocals are insane.

If you don't count in the intro (which is entitled "Intro : Beer", haha) and "Reet Reel", the banjo-vomit-interlude, the 11 songs which are left, introduces us a raw, ferocious, sometimes tediously slow, but nevertheless brutal beer-fueled black metal-album. Overall a very atmospheric album with a lot of tempo-variations. The lyrics are rather weird... But let's not allow that ruin this listening experience. Overall "De Totem" is a fucking obscure and weird album, with variating song quality. "Midgets Of Evil" blew my mind the first time I heard it, and now after about 300 listenings I still love it. And the vocals are insane.

Standout tracks : Midgets Of Evil, Inner Magma.

This CD is highly recommended (especially for drinking booze, as background music), even though I cannot give more points than 70%, because I always have to skip the slower songs on this album. But the vocals are insane. (This is a fact that _can't_ be repeated too many times in Lugubrum's case).

Oh yeah, and the re-release features 2 previously unreleased tracks, the first ("Paardeberg") featuring great brutal high-speed black metal, the other ("Nooitgedacht") being a lame instrumental with random noises.