Mere Mortals (2019)
The Lumberjack Feedback
Instrumental Doom Sludge Post Metal
“We’re all gonna die”, Iggy Pop once sang. No, we are not immortal but human beings with all mistakes and some of those human aspects now are banned on the second full-length of the Instrumental Stoner colossus from Lille released via Deadlight Records.
Names like Celeste are big in French Extreme Metal already. But The Lumberjack Feedback goes more into the Sunn O))) and Neurosis section. With their motto “Loud and Low”, they found home at Purple Sage PR, who also support Mars Red Sky, Ecstatic Vision, Black Rainbows, Nick Oliveri, Sunnata, Conan and many more. After gigs at e.g. the Hellfest, they celebrated the release at Le Bistrot de St SO at the Gare Saint Saveur.
Like the Prehistoric Pigs, the band plays completely instrumental, and like Lvmen, they have got two drummers as massive trademark. In seven songs and 47 minutes, they demonstrate their drone potential. Number one is “Therapy?”, a classic beautiful riff as welcome, out of some reason reminding of From Hell. Maybe because of the drum sound and breaks, also bringing up “Havenless”. The rhythms define the song like kettledrums the strokes on a galley.
In “Kill! Kill! Kill! Die! Die! Die!” the heaven gets darker, until the middle could be part of a black ambient project. The panorama of the drums here gets clear in particular. The “New Order (Of The Ages)” is splitted in two parts. The first serves as intro with effects and strains, until the decent start of the instruments let oneself freeze and await motionless for what will happen. The diverse composition leads to part two. Rumbling Doom spheres, between calling church bells and raising graves screaming to the moon in the blood red sky. This virtuosity must be a live highlight to 100 percent.
From the cemetery something is whistling: “Wind’s Last Blow” is summarizing part before the appearance of “A White Horse (Called Death)”. Horsemen, Pale Rider, The Man Comes Around, this topic is high in popular culture but has not been so conciliatory as well as epic and that definite. The sword of Damocles is above everything, the end of the battle is near, the final decision is approaching.
It overtakes the listener with “Kobe (The Doors Of Spirit)”. Twelve more minutes in Progressive Psychedelic Sólstafir mood until the ultimate coup like “The Chosen Pessimist”. The last low notes trail off. It is over. The ship, the galley is docking.