I love a good mystery. One of the most used introductions “it was a dark and stormy night” always set the mood for some sort of dark mischief. So, today is not dark and stormy, yet I have a mystery on my hands. It concerns this band that El Jefe sent me called Lvme and their latest album A Sinful Nature, a sophomore release I believe with their first album coming out back in 2019. There’s a website link on their Bandcamp page, but absolutely no band information… what the fuck? So at this point I don’t know who is in the band or if it’s even humans? Maybe it’s that AI all the kids are crying about these days… fuck it, I don’t know much here apparently, but I do know that A Sinful Nature is a good if flawed album so I will concentrate on the music and that’ll be all he wrote.

I get a distinct sense of French Black Metal with this album, I hear some heavy Deathspell Omega influences, Teitanblood and Blut Aus Nord to name just three. Not knowing where they hail from I am unsure of the scene there, so I’m left to assume it’s somewhere on earth, anyway, there’s that.

The opening track, “The Venomous Fire” begins with a beautifully discordant riff by Guitarist 1. It goes on for a bit longer before the song picks up speed with some rich, ethereal picking over the blasting (programmed) drums, and I notice the good production right away; it’s nice and thick and not a four dudes in a basement with a four-track, thin as a Catholic wafer sort of affair.

The thing with Lvme is that they (?) Don’t know when to end a song… first track is 9:36 and it loses it’s way after a while, to the point where I found myself missing half the song . “Strix Rêverie” is a better track, it’s a nice 5:44 DSBM-sized track; morose and pissed off. The longer tracks don’t need to be that long. “Without Light or Guide” flew by and I didn’t even realize it, I had to replay it to make sure I heard it well enough. It is a hefty Black Metal track, and shows that Lvme are good at bringing some emotion into their sound it turns out to be my favorite track, beginning with some eerie chanting before the blasts kick in around a twisting riff and the track just fucking explodes. “Into Ashen Stone” begins with a morose intro and continues with it for a couple of minutes before the song takes flight and the blasts come in. The final track “Obenaus und Nirgends an!” a plodding, living beast of aggression that closes out this strange album.

I’ll admit to having some problems with Lvme, the lack of information for anything pertaining to the band is actually frustrating. The album isn’t bad, on the contrary, it’s pretty enjoyable, good production clicks all the right boxes as well. So, if you like your Black Metal attack churning and burning like a black flame, then Lvme is for you.

[Visit the band's website]

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