Album Review: The Lurking Fear - Death, Madness, Horror, Decay
Reviewed by Daniel Phipps
Hailing from Sweden and with a selection of underground veterans with a musical resume which includes At The Gates, Lock Up, The Crown & The Haunted to name but a few it’s fair to say that a lot is going to be expected of The Lurking Fear. The band who formed 5 years ago used the pandemic period to create and craft a new set tracks. Expanding on the Lovecraft themes of earlier work, in order to craft a 12 track insight into the world of supernatural horror titled 'Death, Madness, Horror, Decay'.
'Death, Madness, Horror, Decay' is a musical journey, it’s fast and up tempo opening pushes its opening tracks quickly onto you which brings you on to track 5 in under 10 minutes. The tracks although short do not lack what they bring to the forefront of the listeners attention span. A mixture of grinding guitars which feature a truly evil tone, a crust/D Beat tempo and a full booming drum sound can be found throughout these opening 5 tracks. You based on the grindy start to the record you would be forgiven for thinking that 'Death, Madness, Horror, Decay' is going to be done in under 25 minutes and that’s when 'Death, Madness, Horror, Decay' transitions. What follows is The Lurking Fear bringing forward a much darker doomier sound into the mix, now this is not a complete 180-degree shift, the album continues to still retain the core sound featured earlier within the tracks, but it is heavily expanded on.
The records title track features those dark doomy sections before transitioning into a furious Swedish death metal onslaught. 'One in Flesh' and 'Cosmic Macabre' bring that crust punk element within the sound to the forefront of its writing. The band also bring in Chris Reifert of Autopsy to add his twisted vocals to the albums interlude track, before it launches into Ageless Evil which is filled with furious energy from its stripped back grind sound.
The Lurking Fear deliver a savage dosage of dirty grindy sounding death metal filled with huge heavy doom sections, with furious riffing and powerful drums. Death, Madness, Horror, Decay as its name suggests is the soundtrack for all your twisted supernatural stories and nightmares.
