Brown Metal Hoedown!

LUGUBRUM - De Totem (1999)

That's right: Brown Metal, and Lovendegem, Belgium's Lugubrum are its only exponents. Their songs revolve around their twin obsessions of beer and carrots, not hackneyed far right politics or Anti-Xianity. They wear straw hats and smoke corncob pipes... got yer attention yet? How about if I told ya that their music, although deeply rooted in the lo-fi grimnity of second-wave Norwegian black metal, features an occasional banjo?** How about if I revealed a few of their perverse song titles such as "Udder of Death," "Beard of Disease" and "Midgets of Evil"? Now forget all that shit I just typed, cuz thee blurry, buzzsaw guitar riffs and positively maniacal vox lift this several tiers above yer garden variety novelty act.

"De Totem" is an album that requires incessant listening for it to reveal its full scope. It may sound ridiculous, but I'd (almost) put it in the same category as "Trout Mask Replica"-- so fulla polyrhythmic insanity that yer initial reaction may feel like attempting to navigate a labyrinth with corncob pipes in yer eyes (smoking a pipe of yer own may help; and I'm talking about the one yer big brother smoked, not yer dad). There's a section of heavily-treated guitar in "Beard of Disease" that I swore was a lap steel the first dozen or so times this filth desecrated my earholes, and yes, it does sound like vocalist Barditus is being anally raped by Godzilla, but when you take the time to learn the verbiage of his depraved poetry, thou shalt recognize his genius. Check out the lyrics to "Inner Magma," for example:

Sulphurous visions
in yellow vapour
Contorted crater
Scalding indigestion

Violent eruption
Fertile deluge
Cleansing from the core
The smell of rebirth!

They don't hardly write 'em like that anymore.

** = Sadly, since moving to thee urban sprawl of Ghent, they've abandoned 'Boersk Blek Metle' (Farmer Black Metal).

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