By: Charlie Butler
Album Type: Split LP
Date Released: 15/08/2017
Label: Live Fast Die Records
The combination of these
two bands on one mammoth slab of wax is a marriage made in hell. No Funeral and
Livid are definitely acts to check out now if you like it slow, heavy and
desolate.
“No Funeral / Livid” Split LP//DD track listing:
1). No Funeral - Infection
2). No Funeral – Disease Brought By Depression
3). Livid – False Hope
The Review:
This
split LP brings together two Minneapolis doom heavyweights united in
snail-paced drudgery. No Funeral and Livid both deal in punishing, immersive doom delivered in
contrasting styles.
No Funeral immediately establishes an air of
quiet foreboding with the cold, bare introduction of “Infection”. Clean guitars are quickly drowned under a torrent of filthy
sludge as the band rumble into a lumbering evil riff. There are slight
increases in tempo as the track progresses but a grisly doom crawl is
maintained throughout, somewhere between Iron Monkey’s
belligerent spite and Unearthly Trance’s bleakest
moments. The mood of hopelessness is heightened by the nasty dual vocals,
particularly the harsh howls of despair near the start of second track “Disease Brought By Depression”. Here
the band dive deeper into the well of misery, building to a harrowing climax
where a vocal sample detailing the effects of heroin withdrawal skips and
repeats as the track unravels into chaos.
Livid’s side of this split is a single 19
minute epic titled “False Hope”. The
oppressive atmosphere of No Funeral’s offering
remains but the sludge has been dialled back in favour of spacious dark
psychedelia in the vein of Yob or early Pallbearer. There is a stark contrast on the vocal front
too but Cole’s Benson’s clean,
reverb-assisted delivery instils a similar level of dread via a different
mechanism. Over the first half of the track the band wring maximum impact from
a gloomy chord sequence before letting a huge riff unfurl out of the dirge and
develop over the second half.
The
combination of these two bands on one mammoth slab of wax is a marriage made in
hell. No Funeral and Livid are
definitely acts to check out now if you like it slow, heavy and desolate.
“No Funeral / Livid”
is available here
Band
info: No Funeral || Livid
