LIFER – ‘Long Time Dead’ (Self Released)
CD Reviews
Written by Gaz E
Wednesday, 19 August 2009 17:56
Living in a ghost town, all hope decaying in the acid Thatcher reign, shaped unfit lives and minds. Teenage rock fans barely alive in those fractured times two decades ago had two choices;- glam yourself up and try to forget about your surroundings or scream your fucking lungs out about how shit life was in forgotten towns. South Wales suffered during those times. Strikes, unemployment, dereliction – there was plenty of opportunity for a burgeoning thrash metal scene to claw its way out of the mire and holler some kind of release.
The echoes of those dark times remain – they left scars on the landscape and scarred the lives of thousands of people. Veterans of those days, for whom thrash was noisy release, a catharsis, haven’t forgotten. As they have grown older, they have channelled the aggression, the fury, and aimed it at the enemies of this modern world. Members of Lifer, spread across several bands many years ago, still have that anger within them. Still have that itch to tell the world that it is fucking itself, but now they have the wisdom – and talent – to do so with staggering results.
The ‘Long Time Dead’ EP contains just three tracks, but this terror trio of tunes sounds like the end of the world in progress – heavy as fuck and edgy as Hell, spiked with an acute social commentary. Lifer have taken the choicest cuts of old school thrash and fused them to the low, grimy groove of Down…..with devastating effect.
If every band needs a break-out song – a ‘Hail Destroyer’, a ‘Redneck’ – then Lifer have theirs in ‘Raging Waters’. Furiously addictive, and featuring a seriously memorable chorus that harks back to ‘Deliverance’ era Corrosion Of Conformity, this song will smash down doors for the band. No, forget doors – it will kick through walls. As good a song as you will hear from an unsigned band this year. While it is the standout track, the other two songs on what is essentially a demo, ‘Bring It Down’ and ‘World Of Terror’, are furious aural attacks that threaten to pulverize the speakers and reduce the listener to atoms.
Ugly metal for ugly times.