To enter the fucked-up world of It's A Lunken is to subject yourself to 1 hour and 8 minutes of grating noise and ear gouging tonal violence. Not for the delicate, the album becomes a serious test of endurance, one I hadn’t prepared myself for. Before their album dropped through my door, I was enjoying the soothing summer sounds of Nick Drake. I'm going to now need a few days to recover. That's got to be some kind of an achievement for them, surely?
In the apocalyptic vision of God Speed You! Black Emperor, the angry expressionist vein of The Big Black, and the screeching guitar experimentalism of Glenn Branca, It's A Lunken injects a potent dose of contemporary industrial noise, perhaps to the point of an OD. A painful record, brilliantly loud and offensive. They've found a good home with Sound Devastation Records and other stoned-but-serious 'ROCK' acts such as Sleep or OM.
Their guitar work is unusual and varied and sets them apart from your generic doom metal or screamcore (An example would be the track MK12 that opens with imitation church bell tolls). Melodies attempt to crawl their way out of the atonal surge only to be destroyed by a blast of distortion. The rhythm stumbles behind, wounded but still dangerous and the lead singer skilfully manipulates his voice into primal cries, howls and cult chanting, right to the very edge of its breaking point.
For a debut, it doesn't get more daring than this, but Christ knows where they can next turn. Another album of the same would spell a quick death. The raging tone of the record becomes comically macho and cheesy after too long. It’s all so very serious, someone should buy them all a Happy Meal.
(© Copyright 2009 Brendan Morgan)
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