Lifelover - Pulver

I’ve always been a bit hit and miss when it comes to black metal. I think it’s because black metal is easily one of the most over-saturated genres of music out there. There seems to be an endless stream of black metal projects the world over, constantly vying for grimness and struggling to flog their shitty limited run cassette-release demos. In all honesty, I only ended up checking out Lifelover because of the extremely interesting (and quite ironic) band name. If they were called Sataniiik Invokkkor Ov Frostbitten Warbeasts or something equally as hammy I would have been much less inclined to bother listening to them. I’m just not kvlt enough.

Lifelover however, are (or were) grim as fuck. They are (or were) lumped in by pedantic metalheads into the ridiculous sub-genre called Depressive Suicidal Black Metal, or DSBM for short. Now, whiney self-loathing bullshit cried out by well-off Europeans living in countries with phenomenally high quality of life (90s Norway scene, I’m looking at you!) usually drives me up the wall, but there’s something really creepy about Lifelover’s folky, morose approach to black metal that feels so genuine. At first, compared to powerhouse black metallers like Marduk or 1349, Lifelover’s music can seem a little lazy, but as it unfolds and you adjust to the guitar playing style you come to realise that whoever is strumming that thing is in fact very, very tired with life.

Lifelover glorify death, self-harm, suicide, murder and all sorts of other horribly depressing shit. But, it’s delivered with such authenticity and worrying sombreness that it really gets to me. It does not surprise me at all in the slightest, that four albums later, Lifelover’s main songwriter (known only as B) winds up offing himself, effectively ending the band. This was a very, very serious reminder that Lifelover were not joking or simply looking to shock with their music.

None of the other Lifelover albums hold the same haunting, nihilistic self-loathing that Pulver does. It’s a difficult listen, but well worth it if you’ve got the stones for it.