Review by Vince Leigh
This duo from Canberra have unleashed their new post-doom metal two-track EP Akuma Kin into the world and what a mini-opus of detuned distorted revelry it is.
This is epic sloth metal at its most hearty and coercive, folks.
411 kicks off proceedings, and as soon as that brief drum fill is done, we’re in Lucifungus’ stranglehold. This six-minute auditory trek utilises a Sabbath-like riff as its grappling iron and doesn’t let up.
Interspersed amid a few variations of this hallucinatory guitar/bass motif are the vocals, a two-line incantation that braids into the fabric of the bludgeoning rhythm when the aforementioned riff recedes ever so slightly into the not too distant background. These oscillations continue until halfway through after which a one bar drum break acts as a relief valve letting us take in a few seconds of air before the rest of the song completes its job of pummelling us into submission. Then it’s another cycle of riff and vocal until the end where a fragmented bass part becomes analogous to our depleted but no less beguiled attention.
With the second track, Fire In The Sky, we get an ominous bluesy metal cycling of two riffs, the opening version containing a demented boogie like flavour, the other more subdued and helping to create the very tentative light and shade of the track.
At the halfway point, once again a break ensues, but this only leads us into yet another variation of the riff, this time a brooding sludge taking us further into the depths. It picks up though, proceeding to another round of riffs until the end.
Without a vocal, the strength of Lucifungus’ sloth-filled power is altered, but no less effective, and this track is nonetheless yet another kind of aural violation. You can hear traces of some of the metal acts that have come before, such as Saint Vitus, Trouble and Candlemass, but Lucifungus is less like their forebears and aligned more to the recent crop such as Cathedral, Church of Misery and Electric Witch.
Of course, the influence of Black Sabbath is discernible, but Sabbath’s empyreal imprint on this style is incontestable. Lucifungus’ EP is no doubt a concentrated representation of their live performances, but it feels just as relentlessly imperious as I imagine those experiences are.
Lucifungus EP Akuma Kin can be purchased from https://lucifungus.bandcamp.com/releases
