The Lurking Fear – Out Of The Voiceless Grave

Out Of The Voiceless Grave is an urgent, primal, and straight from the heart death metal album.

The Lurking Fear combines members from classic death metal acts such as At The Gates, Disfear, and The Crown for a true collaboration of musical ideals as opposed to other “supergroups” that run purely off star studded lineups and reputation alone. Their debut album Out Of The Voiceless Grave takes an inside out approach that allows each member to inject their own experiences and influences in a way that reflects the core of what death metal is at its roots. The album is an amalgamation that spans in sound from the slow and calculated to the fast and uninhibited, leaving no room for anything less than foot-to-the-floorboard, full speed ahead riffing throughout.

The band shows strength in several aspects of the album such as their control over the tempo in “Vortex Spawn,” which starts with the classic blast beat and tremolo picking that immediately identify the track as a straightforward, no-holds-barred death metal jam, but shifts into a slow and sinister Behemoth-esque style and back again at such an interval that, as soon as the listener is getting used to the groove, it shifts suddenly and violently.

Tomas Lindberg’s vocals also serve as a resounding strength throughout the entire release in a performance that is nothing short of exemplary. There is no track in which he falters whatsoever, but at the same rate he instills a sense of continuity as every track is of the utmost quality vocally and there’s no point in which his energy peaks or burns out whatsoever. Like an explosive charge spread over a 42 minute ignition time, he is steadfast and consistent in his volatility until the end.

As powerful as his performance is, Lindberg is overshadowed by the musicianship of the rest of the band a few times such as on “Tongued With Foul Flames,” where the rhythm section just overshadows him with sheer brute force and violence exhibited in their playing as Jonas Stålhammar and Fredrik Wallenberg steal the show with a solid combined rhythm/lead performance leading into “Winged Death,” which is arguably the best drum performance on the album thanks to Adrian Erlandsson’s Herculean effort put forth on his kit, seemingly using every drum and cymbal attached at some point throughout the track.

2017 has been a great year for death metal thus far, but where most bands are moving to be more precise and manufactured in order to retain a fan-base, The Lurking Fear is digging up the roots of the art form in utter defiance of what has become the status quo, putting forth into the world an album that is urgent, primal, and straight from the heart.