Lurk — Fringe
Today I got for review Fringe from Finnish band Lurk, who sits in the atmospheric sludge/doom metal genre. Before this release, the band put out two albums. The debut album was released in 2012 and the second album in 2014. And now, four years later, Lurk offers to our attention the third full-length album, which was released by the Indian label Transcending Obscurity Records both in digital form and in a huge number of physical media. We have Gold LP Box Set (Ltd. to 25), Gold-Embossed Box Set (Limited to 100), Fringe Gold LP (Limited to 100), 8-Panel Matt Varnish Digipak CD with Gold Base (Ltd. to 300) CD, and many extras, which are added to each edition. All of this you can order on the official website of the label, or on the Bandcamp pages of either the label or the band.
Now I must dwell on the description of the cover. This, without a doubt, an amazing work by the artist Adam Burke. This is not just a cover, but a full-fledged detailed picture made in the scale of the classic cinema poster, so, in the foreground, we see small objects, and on the background - large ones. So in the foreground, we see a mountain landscape, to the right of it is the silhouette of a deer standing in the water. The deer looks at the cave, from which the light shines brightly and the bats fly out. Then comes a larger scale. We see two human skeletons stretching their hands to a shining cave. Next is an image of an owl made on a larger scale. Behind the owl, there is a night sky and a crescent moon. The work is done with oil paint by rather large strokes. The colors are dominated by yellow, green and red. In the upper left corner is, in my opinion - very successful, the Lurk logo, executed in red. The album's title Fringe is located at the bottom of the center of the cover. It is done in a slightly green simple font. After all this extravaganza on the cover and a huge number of offered media, I was extremely intrigued by the musical content of the album.
So, the album consists of eight songs with a total duration of just over forty-four minutes. The duration of the compositions varies from three and a half minutes to seven.
After listening to this album, I do not see the point in describing each track separately, since the album is monolithic both in sound and stylistically. I heard, what I expected from a lot of sludge groups. It's the same frightening, shamanistic atmosphere that I once heard from Neurosis. But it would be wrong to say that Lurk just copies their style. Lurk went their own way, taking as a basis the classics of sludge and adding to it the slow swaying rhythm of stoner and post-black metal elements. I want to note it’s a very good and thoughtful sound. There is no heaviness and overload. Everything is quite soft and atmospheric, but the extreme sound, characteristic for this genre, is still present here. Nevertheless, we can hear every note. A certain part of the atmospheric level is brought by unobtrusive keyboard passages and a few sound effects. When reviewers language is too stingy to describe the sound of the album of any group, then we must go to comparisons, that the listener can understand a rough sound. For me, this album was a combination of Neurosis, Ajattara, and late Enslaved. But you may come up with comparisons.
Separately I want to mention the vocal works. I think the vocalist can be proud of himself. We hear an almost complete set of vocal styles of metal music. Clean vocal, whisper, screaming, growling, and God knows what else. And sometimes all these vocals sound together. It creates a sense of the chorus of insane forest spirits singing in the night ...
Perhaps this is the first album I’ve reviewed which I’ve to find any obvious flaws. No doubt, they are present, as on any album of any group. But I finally got what I was looking for again in the sludge genre - the mysterious sinister atmosphere of primeval shamanic times, embodied in sound