Filthy Music Review - 'Lychgate: Lychgate'

Lychgate – Lychgate (2013)

Mordgrimm 

Review by Jude Felton

It’s all too easy to focus on facts that aren’t directly in correlation to the music, when approaching some albums. Lychgate, for example, comprise of members of Omega Centuari, Lunar Aurora and Esoteric, which can be helpful, in as much as you might get a general idea of what to maybe expect from the music. However, Lychgate is very much its own entity, and that entity is massive and crushing, unleashing an album that most certainly delivers.

At its heart Lychgate is black metal, but as we all know that genre has gone off in so many directions and tangents that it is now very much a blanket term that covers many styles. Lychgate’s sound is a punishing one, and one that is grandiose in scope without disappearing up its own ass. The production is such that it emphasizes all elements, whilst keeping the fluidity of the album firmly intact.

The grandiose elements are married in with haunting atmospherics, some great doomier moments as well as some good old fashioned blasting away. It’s an album of diversity and as such is one that demands your attention, rather than just listening to it as background music. Once, however, you have fully digested it you’ll get that appreciation of just how much is going on here, and how damned good it is.

So, you could focus on who is in the band, or you could just take that on board and then sit back and enjoy an album that delivers the goods in all departments. Ferocious, atmospheric and incredibly powerful, Lychgate is most certainly an album that you need to hear.

Track List:

1. The Inception
2. Resentment
3. Against The Paradoxical Guild
4. In Self Ruin
5. Sceptre To Control The World
6. Intermezzo
7. Triumphalism
8. Dust Of A Gun Barrel
9. When Scorn Can Scourge No More

Lychgate is available on CD now from Mordgrimm.