De vette cuecken

First off, let me start by saying that this album is really, really fucking weird. The production is low-to-mid grade black metal at best, they use banjos and saxophones mixed with erratic black metal, and they sing about shit like beer and how delicious food is. This might turn off some people from trying this album, and it's understandable. But these people would be missing out immensely, especially if they are fans of black metal.

The music is black metal, alright. That much can not be denied. But it's how the songs are structured and how the music is played that makes such a difference. I would refer to this music as "Avant-Garde Black Metal," however, "Experimental Black Metal" fits pretty well too. The vocals are standard mid-range harsh black metal shrieks and growls over top music that is almost raw black metal, but not quite, as the production is a bit better than many raw black metal bands. Did I mention how ridiculously erratic this music is? The music can go from fast as hell, sprinting black metal with blast beats then all of the sudden switch to a catchy-ass riff that is very slow, with jazz-like drumming mixed in. Following the catchy, slow part, it will get faster and faster until the drummer is blast beating his head off, then a saxophone segment will come into the mix, making anyone listening to the music take a double take in the direction of the music player or speaker, wondering if someone had put on a recording of John Coltrane while he was fucked up on PCP on top of a black metal album by accident. The listener will then become even more perplexed when they hear shit like banjos and mandolins coming into the mix, almost always off-tune and almost always at the weirdest time for any of the aforementioned instruments to make an appearance.

The guitars on this album are good. For black metal, they are slightly above average, as there are a good amount of fucked up, off-beat solos mixed in and some of the playing can get fairly technical. They have a very crunchy sound but it's not your classic black metal crunch, I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seems to be a bit lighter and just ever-so-slightly tinged with a death metal tone. The riffs are absolutely amazing and are legit some of the catchiest riffs I had ever witnessed hearing in all of my years enjoying black metal.

The drums are also a captivating part of this album. They are extremely jazzy in nature and their time beats are always off or not on time; it's very out of the ordinary. The drums are actually part of what makes this album so special, because if they were normal it wouldn't be nearly as interesting.

The bass...well the bass is how basses are usually portrayed in metal; they can sometimes be heard, and when they can be heard they're alright, but for the most part it just follows the guitar riffs and isn't really heard much. It's a shame because an equally erratic bass could have made this album even better.

As for everything else, such as the mandolin, saxophone, and banjo (as well as the interesting sounding keyboard (?)) they utilized the strange sound these instruments make absolutely perfectly. They are off-tune and are inserted into the songs at the most random times; every single one is a surprise listen once their fucked up sounds reach your ears. These unconventional instruments are what makes the weird, depraved, fucked up atmosphere of this album.

In closing, this band reminds of so much of Demilich, albeit they are black metal. The vocals aren't the weird part, though. It's the guitar riff and drumming timing, the fucked up mis-tuned unconventional instruments and haunting atmosphere that make this album, along with the extremely catchy guitar riffs. This album should be in any black metal fan's or avant-garde/experimental metal fan's collection. In my opinion, this album is an absolute classic and more people need to hear it.

To be honest I got this album through trade and I won't keep it. I've listened to it several times and I still can't really get into it, even if some parts stay in my mind. Consider this review as a warning to listeners who might be disappointed by this album, as I was myself.

The biggest problem with De Vette Cuecken is the production. Trust me, I'm very familiar with raw, dirty garage production, but here it's really bad. The guitar tone is particularly shitty, it's just your common cheap distortion blow which covers all the notes so you can't figure what's played. In fact drums and vocals dominate the mix most of the time, especially during blastbeats, so you can't hear the notes except during breaks and slow parts. The production is not only poor, it's weak and not loud. It considerately lacks power and precision (though not completely blur and messy). You have to listen to the album with headphones to hear every element.

Though fast and well-executed, the drums are boring, because they fail to accompany the guitar riffs properly. They're rather accompanied by guitar riffs. All you can hear is blastbeats, double bass, harsh vocals and some distorted guitar in the background. The vocals tend to get annoying too because of their omnipresence. The vocalist barks like a little dog or a drunk insane hobo. The vocals would be less ridiculous if they were not so loud in the mix (but I suppose the grotesque was more or less intended). The album sounds most of the time like a drummer rehearsing intense patterns and a vocalist constantly screaming over distorted riffs in the background.

Instead of being de-structured, the songs are repetitive. Lugubrum can play the same break twice in a song, and that kills the surprise effect. The riffs (when you can hear them) are dissonant, but not in the typical orthodox black metal manner. The band's playing approaches jazzy death metal, but in a definite black metal style.

I can't deny that the dirty production creates an atmosphere, but it's a kind of disturbing atmosphere. De Vette Cuecken contains ugly music. Sure, the use of a banjo is quite original and interesting. The saxophone also introduces a jazzy tone which gives the band a unique trademark. I just happen to dislike the atmosphere which results.

De Vette Cuecken sounds like intentional modern degenerate art. It makes me feel like if I was bad tripping in a sleazy restaurant with horrible lights and disgusting food in my plate. That's probably what the band wanted to evoke, but that's not the atmosphere I'm looking for when I listen to black metal.

Nevertheless, I cannot say that this is a bad album. If you're looking for weird black metal with raw production, modern atmosphere (not modern production) and jazz influences, you might like De Vette Cuecken, and even find the album great. That's why I'm rating the album 50% : I didn't like it because it's not my taste, but some might like it. If you're looking for a mix of thrashy palm-mutes, burzumesque plaintive riffs and Black Sabbath influences like the song "Gekloofd" (not on this album), stay away from De Vette Cuecken.

It seems that the band's earlier works had a more traditional black metal vibe. At the moment I'm listening to De Totem and it's far better, both composition and production-wise.

This is an album that teeters on a razor-sharp edge of being too weird for its own sake, and it would probably fall over entirely if the music wasn't just as good as it ends up being. For all its forays into latent silliness, Lugubrum actually makes some unbelievably menacing and dark music on 'De Vette Cuecken', but more importantly, it uses its more unusual elements as an asset to the atmosphere it generates rather than an obstacle to overcome. Having not heard other work by Lugubrum, I'm not sure if this was a fluke or if the band is honestly that good at writing such tightrope-walking music, but either way, 'De Vette Cuecken' is a very good album which sets at least one sort of template for how distinctly (and even artificially) 'weird' music should be executed.

The base framework of Lugubrum's music on this album is a primarily midpaced and sludgy variety of black metal beholden to no particular geographical 'scene' in particular. This doesn't greatly resemble anything else I've heard in the black metal scene save a very slight resemblance to some French artists, and this is probably because, while this is black metal, it doesn't sound a tremendous amount like black metal at all. Some comparisons could be drawn to Carpathian Forest purely by virtue of the prominent saxophone (more on that later), but that's a rather limited view of this band. Lugubrum plays black metal by way of Goatsblood, very devoid of rock and roll or groove and almost proggy in its resistance of linearity. Song structures tend to slowly wander before arriving back in a wide circle, but it was looking around at so many things you had no idea you were just turning left the whole time.

This is raw without being 'raw black metal'; the riffs are primitive and deliberately awkward sounding, the rhythms are oftentimes more convoluted than they entirely need to be, and as a whole this sounds like a very unformed and primitive version of what the band 'should' sound like. Of course, the trick is that given the subtle complexity of this music, it takes musicians this professional to actually pull this sort of thing off. There's a lot going on in 'De Vette Cuecken' just under the surface of messy guitar tone and bleak song structures which seems shaped by very steady hands, very experienced in the art of crafting strange music. This is pretty clearly evidenced in how, despite the deliberate awkwardness of this music, it all latches together cleanly; it's logically awkward, in a way, and so I suppose it's not really as weird as it appears to be.

But it's the most extreme and unusual elements that make this release: namely the usage of saxophone. Popping up in a number of tracks but most prominently in the title number, it's actually a hugely important part of the release. The melodies it plays are almost wholly unrelated to what the guitars are shuffling around at any given moment, and are generally more jazzy in nature than anything, but when fused with a very deliberately composed set of riffs, it results in a sound that's more evil and bizarre than just about anything else commonly found in black metal. This, in turn, is conducive to producing a mysterious and sleazy atmosphere like some perversion of early 20th century noir themes; it's unique, grotesque, and a great example of how people in black metal can still come up with original ideas.

The convoluted yet elegant usage of these elements is a good microcosm of the album as a whole: something that sounds ridiculous and weird for no reason at first, but upon further listens reveals something precisely laid out and essential to the overall feeling of the music. This is an ambitious and very successful release; I generally don't like albums that are so openly infatuated with themselves, but I can't deny the brilliance of execution present here. With that said, I have to recommend this to any fan of progressive or simply bizarre black metal; this almost assuredly sounds nothing like anything you've heard before, and for that reason alone is a worthwhile purchase.

This is some truly weird stuff, Lugubrum plays a strange kind of beer drinking “Comedy Black Metal” (not a parody), but their music is better than a lot of “kvlt” bands out there. They combine heavy riffs with strange drum playing, insane vocals, distorted bass, banjo, mandolin and saxophone!! In their previews albums they were very Darkthrone influenced, here, they still have that influence, but this time they sound more like Black Sabbath playing raw BM. This is very unique music, this band has created their own sound and I can say that they are among the best Black Metal bands today. The sound here is very raw but works perfectly, sounds like it was recorded in a garage, but it brings the music a very dark atmosphere. All the songs here are very good, not a boring moment or filler stuff, I recommend this to any Black Metaller who wants to enjoy something different and heavy.