Lebensraum - Lebensraum (EP)

LEBENSRAUM - Lebensraum
2012
Indie

The first thing that caught my attention might have been the beautiful logo and artwork. A DIY enterprise, this CD is housed in a 2-panel digipak, where black and grey are the main ingredients. Here we find the themes of nature and darkness, probably more associated with black metal than any other style. However, the content displays something else.

This is the first EP from Montreal Lebensraum. This 33-minutes cd speaks the doom language with great skills: it uses influences from the late '70s Sabbath riffing to contemporary funeral doom arrangements. As displayed by its cover, the Lebensraum EP is coated with black metal in a degree that I've rarely seen (the only band I'm thinking of might be Lurk). Once we venture through Lebensraum, it gets cold, very cold, and we can barely see the sun peeking through this ominous forest.

So what exactly means Lebensraum? You might have guessed, it's german. It's a concept about "living space" developed in the 19th Century about unification and adding territories or colonies. The idea was further transformed by Hitler to justify the expansion of Nazi Germany, especially on the Eastern front. Pretty dark theme for a blackened doom band.

The journey that we experience going through the Lebensraum EP is a very interesting one. Starting on a funeral doom note, it goes black and then comes back towards more familiar stoner doom territory, all that in 5 songs of uneven length. Breaking it down track by track might be the best way to dissect this piece of blackened art. In a grandiose manner, the EP opens with "This I Doom", an epic 11 min 47 song that presents Lebensraum as a band, music and musicians alike: words are spoken in both death metal style and black metal rasp; the guitars sound is sharp and dry, the lead guitar bringing accents of desolation with very simple notes sustained in the background; the bass guitar adds some interesting and infectious bass routine towards the end of the song, a method of composition that is also used on other tracks; while the drum displays both laid back doom beats and details of unorthodoxy earned from other genres. We all know what the band can deliver when "Scorbutus" kicks in at a more standard pace, bringing the listener further into darkened territories with its catchy riff. The journey takes a left-hand path and the listener meets its maker on the third and central song, "Final Path". Here, Lebensraum takes it time, using long pauses and slow pounding riffs, creating an evil and uneasy atmosphere similar to black metallers Marduk and Blodsrit, before bursting into a trash metal attack. In contrast to this song, the following "An Old Man" looks like the lighter song of the EP, mostly because of the stoner groove, although the vocals stay tuned on the dark side and the drum keeps hitting sadistically. Finally, "Dormant Giant" follows that trend and offers some early Maiden-meets-Sabbath riffs, while the vocals are more distant than on any other song. This is one hell of a song to finish an EP and making a statement that there is room for more to come.

Check it out here: http://lebensraum.bandcamp.com/album/lebensraum