-
“Sjukdom” -Lifelover
Swedish DSBM outfit Lifelover quite literally carved a name for themselves as one of the most unique bands representing the genre. Released in 2011, their final album, “Sjukdom” (Swedish for sickness or disease) was one not to be fucked with. Sjukdom is as miserable as it gets: a deranged descent into madness and misery, a bitter and frightening depiction of what it is to truly revile one’s life. This pain is real, and it’s here to stay.
At times, Sjukdom is melodic and bright, while other tracks are chaotic and malicious, or somber and repetitive. Lifelover’s swansong, Sjukdom was a fantastic end to a grand era of auditory misery.
On a personal note, this was my first Lifelover album, and is likely my favorite release by them. I spent many a lonely evening walking and listening to Sjukdom after I had moved to Tampa the same year it was released. Sjukdom was more than another throwaway listen or a time-killer: it was something that I would later come to embody when I was strung out and living on my girlfriend’s mom’s couch, or sleeping in my truck in the Steak ‘N Shake parking lot after a three or four day crack binge. If there was ever a soundtrack to the utter and total ruination of one’s life, Sjukdom would be a contender.
Listen below:
Sjukdom by Lifelover -
“The Leprous Ones”
Cast out, mocked and feared: this is the life of a pariah, this is what it is to become feral in a domesticated world, writhing in the gutters and speaking with shadows, 21st century lepers. We all wear the same filthy mask. This is the face we show when the drugs begin to take us, as our humanity is slowly snuffed out and replaced by callous indifference and numbness; it is hideous and grows uglier by the day as it gluts upon what once was, developing a mind of its own, a cruel parody of its formerly human host.
Many people believe that anyone can be saved from addiction, and mostly, if the person is willing and strong enough, this can be true. But is there a point of no return? How far down can one really sink before it becomes impossible to return to the surface? I suppose that’s subjective. The deepest depths to which I have plunged may have paled in comparison to those reached by others who still managed to recover. But is there a point at which there is no coming back? A point at which the pressure builds enough to crush even the mightiest of us?
The deepest point on Earth is the bottom of the Mariana Trench, far beneath the Pacific Ocean. No submersible -manned or otherwise- has been able to penetrate to this depth due to the insurmountable oceanic pressure. To venture there means certain death, and a point of no return would be reached far above the actual bottom. I can’t help but wonder if addiction isn’t dissimilar to that: if there is a place so dark and horrible -objectively- that it is inescapably deadly; how close has the worst of us made it to this point and returned? Moreover, what changed?
To engage in any hard drug use is to court death. Do we leave a piece of ourselves behind when we return from the pit? I feel I have changed as a man, but I’m not precisely sure how, or if it’s good or bad, or just different.
For now, I’ve beaten the devil, torn back the parasitic mask of addiction and resumed my role as a human being, brother, and friend. I may never know what’s at the absolute bottom of rock bottom, but there are some things we are not deigned to know -at least not without consequence. Some things are best left to imagination. As for the lepers among us who still stalk the blood-soaked streets and dilapidated trap houses yearning for their fix, I will continue to wish them well with sincerity… from a safe distance.
-
“Haunts” -Caulbearer
Eerie and mysterious, “Haunts” by Caulbearer is sodden with gloomy atmosphere and exudes existential dread like a bloated carcass emanates rot. The chilling ambience of Haunts can’t quite decide if it wants to lull listeners to eternal slumber or berate their subconscious with ineffable nightmares, or perhaps do both simultaneously, but with expert subtlety. At once caustic, as well as dreamlike and meditative, Haunts won’t please all listeners, but those with an ear for noisy ambience may want to give it a chance.
The album is available on Caulbearer’s Bandcamp page, and saw a tape pressing by Crucial Blast Records. The quote “…Ethereal Noise for this life and the next…” from their bandcamp sums up everything else to be said about this release.
Support Caulbearer here:
Haunts by Caulbearer -
“Twilight of the Idols: in Conspiracy with Satan” -Gorgoroth
Molten hellfire and plumes of billowing sonic smog spew forth from the very depths of hell as soon as Gorgoroth’s 2003 opus “Twilight of the Idols” begins. The album erupts immediately with “Procreating Satan”, a cacophonous miasma churning and growling like a sentient maelstrom. From there on, “Twilight…” slows its pace: the song “Proclaiming Mercy – Damaging Instinct of Man” and its immediate successor “Exit Through Carved Stones” thunder ponderously like a dying giant shrieking in agony.
The fourth track, “Teeth Grinding”, is almost hypnotic, even soothing, like the final stage of grief when one accepts fate and goes forth into the somber abyss of death, a song that could lull one to suicide. After Teeth Grinding, “Forces of Satan Storms” returns listeners to the breakneck aggression of the opener.
In spite of its unbridled animosity, “Twilight of the Idols” is a controlled burn; Its darkness expertly focused and wielded with lethal cunning by founding guitarist Infernus and crew. Twilight of the Idols is masterpiece of black metal, and brings to listeners an atmosphere both familiar, yet unique enough to stand by its own merit.
-
“Night People: The Eye Infection Incident”
Conjunctivitis (good ol’ pinkeye) can be a real bitch if left untreated. I say this because what began as minor irritation and swelling in my right eye transformed over a period of several weeks into a blinding white-hot nightmare in both of my eyes.
Let’s start from the beginning, or as close to the beginning as I can remember. It was late March of 2017, or April maybe, somewhere in the second quarter of that year, and I was shooting up day and night. I’d work, get home, and go out to procure as much crack as I possibly could. Somewhere in my master plan of being a cracked-out loser, I suppose I had forgotten about basic hygiene and cleanliness, and one day, or night, whenever it was, I woke up with my right eye looking a bit puffed up. It was tender and somewhat red. Now, any normal jackoff would probably have gone to a doctor and spent thirty or forty bucks, plus another ten or so for antibiotics right away, but I was far from a normal jackoff. I had real shit to take care of, like getting fucked up. Yeah, that thirty or forty bucks for the doctor? Fuck it. That was dope money. Every last dime spent on, well, anything, cut into my state of being perpetually blasted. And so it was that I simply looked in the mirror and shrugged, I mean, I was reasonably certain that my eye would improve on its own.
I was wrong.
A week later, or maybe two or four, my eye was crusted over with a thick film of yellow ichor, which had formed a sort of scab that had to be picked off every couple of hours or so in order for me to see. I would peel back this layer of crystalized pus, and as soon as I had done so, more would spill forth.
To make matters worse, the infection had now begun spreading to my left eye as well. Why wouldn’t it? I would come home from chasing rock, exhausted, and flop myself down on the same disgusting pillow I had been sleeping on (without ever changing the pillow case) and pass out in in a bed littered with chore boy and used needles, caked in dried fluid from my eye. I was in agony and could barely see.
Still, the quest for more crack continued and, half-blind and exhausted, I drove to meet my dealer. This meeting was different than the previous several. He looked at me and remarked that my eyes looked like shit. I told him I knew, and that it hurt like hell.
“Yeah” he said, “well I’ve got shit coming out of my dick. I must have picked up a dirty bitch.”
“I’ll trade you,” I replied.
“You’d rather have pus dick than pus eye? You’re crazy, man.”
I told him I meant it. I didn’t need my dick to see. I paid him, we laughed and laughed, and I drove off blindly into the night and kept shooting my dope. Eventually I did seek medical aid, but that, my friends, is a story for another day.
-
“Crawling Out of Satan’s Asshole: My Emergence From the Pits of Addiction”
Life is fragile.
This short sentence is the first thing that comes to my mind when I look back at my behavior and quality of life during my battle with drugs, and it couldn’t be any more true -even now that all of the shit has been flushed and scrubbed away from my life, a lingering stench of decay still follows me. I bucked the monkey off my back, but I’d be a fool to think he isn’t still out there in the bush waiting to climb back on and wallop me in the skull again. As strong and invincible as we think we are, there are cracks in every wall, so we must never leave ourselves unguarded.
Toward the end, before I made the decision to give up pipe and needle, time had begun to accelerate. I was careening toward a dead-end wall at ludicrous speed. There was just enough time for me to stop myself… but it had to be right then. One little slip and I’d have lost everything: homeless and miserable at best, imprisoned or dead at worst. In a brief and miraculous moment of clarity, I saw the approaching wall and realized “this is going to hurt”.
There were many obstacles on the road to recovery, many of which I have detailed here before. The nightmares about shooting up, the money issues, et cetera. I could always hear the harsh, white stone devil calling out for me. “Just one more, just one last ride.” The hardest part was drowning out that other voice in my head that so craved self-destruction and hedonism. That’s where music and books came in handy. I was able to drown out much of the bullshit I was lying to myself about with metal or fiction. I’d listen at such high volume my ears would hurt and I could barely hear myself think, and after a few months, I was able to suffocate that horrible voice, or at least mute it. I had been swallowed by the devil himself, and let me tell you, crawling out of his asshole wasn’t easy. It was like dragging myself through miles of shit on my stomach toward a bright, puckering white light. Every inch I crawled, the light of salvation grew brighter and wider until finally I emerged.
There is reason for me to believe that all the heinous and foolish things I was involved in have shortened my life-expectancy by at least some amount. Who can tell? All I know is that I was fortunate, and still am. Count your blessing daily, and keep to the path. And for those still suffering, the way out is straight through.
-
“The Wretch” -The Gates of Slumber
Doom metal is a genre which wears many faces, changing, evolving and spreading out into many branches and sub-genres within sub-genres. From the early days of Black Sabbath, to more contemporary iterations such as Sleep, Electric Wizard, to the funeral doom subgenre, represented by the likes of Thergothon, Esoteric, Loss, and others, doom is a genre as diverse as any other, and frequently overlaps with others. Ultimately, doom is dark, slow, and heavy: “The Wretch” by The Gates of Slumber meets these criteria with ease.
“The Wretch” may be perhaps not as brutal as other doom bands, but that doesn’t make it any less heavy. This album manages to offer a brooding, melancholy atmosphere of gossamer-shrouded crypts, medieval torture chambers, and looming abandoned castles fallen to ruin, without burying any of its musicianship in feedback or gargled death vocals. This is traditional doom plain and simple. No frills, no bullshit. “The Wretch” feels like wading through an underground bog in total darkness, sinking deeper into the mire with every step.
-
“The Downward Spiral” – Nine Inch Nails
I was first introduced to Nine Inch Nails in high school. My first remembered encounter with the band’s work was “The Downward Spiral”, with which I wasn’t terribly impressed. I was an arrogant teenage metalhead, and permitted my ears to imbibe only the most grotesque and brutal strains of black metal, death metal, and grind. All other music, to my younger self, was false, inferior. Nothing could capture the raw hatred I felt for the world and mankind apart from my beloved metal. I wanted to rend the bones of my enemies, not sit in a sad little corner and mope on about girls, or at least that was how I saw it back then.
Over a decade later, my disdain for Nine Inch Nails had diminished. Metal wasn’t doing it for me. I had burned myself out after a fashion so I needed something new, and after seeing them perform in Pensacola Florida in 2006, I had found a new respect for the band. I bought The Fragile, With Teeth, and Pretty Hate Machine, and devoured them with renewed interest but I still couldn’t bring myself to appreciate The Downward Spiral, even years after my first try at it.
In 2017, I began injecting hard drugs regularly. My ears would ring and the world would quake with each shot, and music became a more immersive experience. One day, whilst thoroughly fucked up, I opted to give Downward Spiral one last try, and finally, it clicked. There is no better album to sum up the misery and isolation of addiction than this one. From the gritty mechanical noise and buzzing guitars on “March of the Pigs”, to the somber minimalism of “A Warm Place” and the hushed, troubled voice of Trent Reznor in “Hurt”, this album runs the full gamut of addiction.
I remember listening to “Hurt” once after shooting the last of my dope and singing along to it, but I couldn’t last long before I began sobbing rather than singing. This album is equal parts an emotional hell-ride and a sonic juggernaut. There are so many nuances to it’s sound that you’re not likely to catch them all in one listen, but that’s quite alright as it’s worth listening to ad infinitum.
Listen here:
-
“A Wandering Disappearance”
I knew a working girl who called herself Ashley. She wasn’t like the other burnouts who walked Ridgewood avenue in Daytona after dark: a thin, pretty blonde of twenty-seven with hazy blue eyes. She lacked the track marks and facial scabs the others had etched into their frail, dying bodies, and she had all of her teeth. She still looked like alive, human, bright and beautiful, but her smile and her eyes were tired. She too was beginning to slip and fade like everyone else who makes money in the back seats of cars when the sun has set.
I met with her several times. We would have sex, talk, and then she’d be on her way, back into the bleak darkness of Cracktown USA.
When I last saw her, she was walking the street in the rain at night. I pulled over and she got in my truck, soaked to her bones, but smiling. She said that she was always happy to see me because I wasn’t dangerous, and she knew I wouldn’t rob or rape or beat her. We conducted our business, and took our time doing so. Afterward, we went out for a cigarette.
“You know, there are a lot of psychos out there posing as normal guys” I said.
“Yeah, I know. I had a friend here who got picked up once and she never came back. Nobody ever heard from her again. She was just gone” she replied.
“Aren’t you worried about what could happen to you? Why do you do this to yourself? You’re sharp, and you’re gorgeous on top of that. You could get financial aid, go to college or something. Why not?”
She smiled and replied “because I like drugs.”
After that night I never saw her again.
Towers of Rust 