DOODSDREK "S/T" (Those Opposed)

A regressively primitive project featuring members of outsider black metal weirdos Lugubrum, Doodsdrek blast through 8 hymns of garage waste in 28 minutes and call it an album. This is black metal that hearkens back to earlier days and more DIY ideals; back then it was as simple as throwing down a few riffs, starting a few fires and proclaiming hatred for everything around you. Doodsdrek obviously want those days to come back; perhaps the artsy pretense of Lugubrum proved too much of a weight.

Lugubrum have never been a refined or glossy project-there's always been an element of crust and decay to their work despite its eclectic instrumentation and there's always been a more eldritch feel attached to their albums. Doodsdrek take that feeling and pursue it even further, reducing black metal to its purest, most simplistic essence-one guitar, one drum kit and a lifetime's worth of rage and disgust. Instruments are beaten with a frightening intensity and an endearing passion while tempos approach the limits of human exhaustion. Reverence for the old masters is here in spades-taken at first listen one can hear echoes of Darkthrone, Ulver and "Deathcrush"-era Mayhem as well as the more pummeling attacks of Discharge and Black Flag. This isn't groundbreaking shit but it's effective and immensely enjoyable for what it is. Sometimes it gets to be too much to think about music in such an intellectual manner all the time. My friend Matt once said that music didn't always have to be challenging or difficult to be enjoyable. At the time i argued with him (and it's dawned on me more and more how frequently i've been wrong about all this stuff) though now i see what he was telling me. It isn't always about defiance, even if it is. It isn't always about dissent and disgust, even if you're angry. Sometimes it's just music because that's what you want to make. It's a fine line, obviously-the band in question with me and Matt was The Minutemen, whom i still can't get into-but there's a validity to that argument that i was unable to appreciate only two years ago.

So Doodsdrek decimate some shit in under 30 minutes with the only goal being to make some awesome, lofi black metal. And they destroy it, totally, even turning in one song (the mighty "De Dode") that 1000 black metal bands would kill to have written on their end of career headstones. This is what happens when boredom and alienation get together. This is the use that garages and basements aspire to. Whether this project will endure is anyone's guess-these songs don't necessarily seem like the riffs that weren't good enough for Lugubrum, and the aesthetic behind Doodsdrek's work is obviously far removed from the intentionally weird vibe of Lugubrum-but while they're here creating fiercely primal black metal art it's as good a reason as any to dim the lights and bang your fucking head.