Israel’s Total Rust Music has carved out a nice little niche for themselves on the black/doom/sludge genre with a number of quality releases from the likes of Highgate, Lords of Bukkake, Pyramido, Funeralium and such. 2012 looks to be of to a similarly high quality start with a trio of releases by Spain’s Tort, French black metallers Chaos Dei, and this, the self-titled debut from Finland’s awesomely named Lurk.

Adorned with some killer, toothy artwork Lurk is a self-produced effort of grimy, but groovy down tempo sludge/doom metal, but with a big emphasis on groove. Basically if you took a Gorefest LP (Erase or Soul Survivor) and slowed it down to about ½ speed, you’d have Lurk. This sound is truly cemented by the sense of groove, but hammered home by vocalist K. Koskinen who is for the most part a dead ringer for Gorefest‘s Jan C in both tone and annunciation with his gravelly bellows. I mean just listen to opener “Soar”, second track “Unfinished” or fourth track “Fire the Blood Sky ” if you don’t believe me.

Lurk the album plods along at a pretty consistent slow, loping gait, but carries dense riffs and once again, there’s that word groove. There’s no sudden injections of blasts, black metal, grind or atmospherics (other than a couple of feedback drenched fade outs), just dirty but clear heft and lurching riffs, that along with the above comparison should appeal to fans of Autopsy’s slower moments and maybe Crowbar. The sludge has a slight bluesy/stoner swagger here and there (i.e. “Pitch Beneath Eternity”), and the album refuses to change paths. The overall effect of the album is a nice, slow burner to bang your head slowly to. Lurk even broaches doom realms, slowing things down for the first half of 8-minute closer “Deliverance” and towards the end of “‘Codec of Becoming God”.

The production is nice’n’beefy. My only gripe is the album’s 6-song 36-minute duration — it feels like a long EP and about two songs short of sounding complete, but the time here is still well spent.

A great sludgy start to 2012 for Total Rust Music.

 

[Visit the band's website]

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