Lucifer – Lucifier V
Lucifer- Lucifer V
Nuclear Blast
Release Date: 26/01/2024
Running Time: 39:37
Review by Rory Bentley
8.5/10
You know what you’re going to get from a Lucifer album at this stage of the game. Big, fuzzy retro guitar tones, sultry bluesy vocals and loveably camp lyrics about spooky and occult stuff. Now five albums deep the band have settled into a satisfying balance of Sabbath, Joan Jett and Coven, led by the charismatic mistress of the dark Johanna Sadonis and the bell-bottomed riff machine Niklas Andersson. But there seems to be a little bit of extra sizzle on this latest offering that hits a little harder and gets the old hips shaking a little more vigorously.
The full-on Doom-laden crunch of the rousing opener ‘Fallen Angel’ has a sense of urgency to it that is sometimes absent from a band that can often be so laid back they’re horizontal and it’s an approach that really makes the record hit home from right out of the gate. I, like many Lucifer acolytes, was a huge fan of the ball-breaking Doom rock project The Oath and their solitary album that Johanna fronted prior to her current band. With Linnea Olson’s feral, crushing riffage they perfected the blueprint for this kind of Metal before both ladies branched out into the snarling Post-Punk of Maggot Heart and pop-tinged throwback Rock of the subject of this review respectively. This record hearkens back to those halcyon days of the 2010s while adding Johanna and Niklas’ more commercial, groove-oriented oeuvre to the mix and the result is the best set of songs in the band’s career.
‘Slow Dance In A Crypt’ is the kind of ghoulish ballad that will be guaranteed to hit the spot at Halloween parties across the globe going forward, offering the chance for all the freaks and zombies to have an intimate dancefloor moment after doing ‘The Monster Mash’ (which by all accounts was a graveyard smash). On the butt-shaking end of things ‘Maculate Heart’ is fuzzed out Garage Rock that is the purest distillation of swag I’ve heard all year and has been burrowed into my brain like a termite since this record hit my inbox, and don’t even get me started on ‘A Coffin Has No Silver Lining’, which is the kind of peak spooky that I live for!
The pattern that should be emerging now is that this record is packed to the gills with memorable and supremely satisfying songs. I’ve always enjoyed getting a new Lucifer album every two years but a few of them have dipped in and out of my regular rotation like a pleasant but fleeting unholy communion rather than a full on permanently-binding blood ritual (my god I’m chatting some absolute bollocks in this one). This time out Lucifer have produced something that’s got major staying power with me, and I’ll be taking Mrs Bentley for a nice ‘Slow Dance In A Crypt’ to this collection of bops for years to come and there’s definitely nothing creepy about what I’ve just said there. Definitely.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Fallen Angel
02. At The Mortuary
03. Riding Reaper
04. Slow Dance In A Crypt
05. A Coffin Has No Silver Lining
06. Maculate Heart
07. The Dead Don’t Speak
08. Strange Sister
09. Nothing Left To Lose But My Life
LINE-UP:
Johanna Platow Andersson- Vocals
Nicke Andersson Platow- Drums
Linus Björklund- Guitar
Martin Nordin- Guitar
Harald Göthblad- Bass
LINKS:
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