Are you a fan of grindcore music? Of course then you must know Shane Embury, Kevin Sharp, Nicholas Barker and Anton Reisenegger, right? This constellation is the one of the band Lock Up and their new album titled “Demonization” is out there since 10th of March. The band after a whole six years and the change of their frontman – Kevin Sharp replaced Tomas Lindberg – got together from all over the globe and created another album. So what should one expect from it?
There are not a lot of things that differ on “Demonization” from the previous releases of the band after the first listening of it. Every single one member that has ever been in LOCK UP has put their personal touch on each album and this one is not an exception. This time we still have furious tempos, venomous riffing and the angry and nasty growls of mr. Sharp.
“These 42 minutes of extreme grind pace won’t leave you unsatisfied for sure”
On the positive side there are also some slow industrialised songs – like the same titled track – that keep the tension high. The songs structure is brilliant and though some may seem they repeat themselves, they are so catchy and fun to listen to. The riffing of Anton combined with the fast pace drumming of Nicholas and the screaming of Kevin are all coming together under the warm of the bass lines of Shane. And all of this feels damn good but…
On the other side the production is really clean; something that is not quite fitting on a grindcore album. Although the songs have great groove and feeling, this cleanness makes them fall out of point. Though many are complaining about the absence of Tompa, this is not the factor that this album is bleeding of. The drumming of Nicholas Barker is excellent as always, but the triggering on the tom drums is quite unnecessary. And again in the whole the production is lacking on a lot of levels.
One thing that probably won’t change is the love for the music called grindcore, these guys have. And definitely they know what they are doing. These 42 minutes of extreme grind pace won’t leave you unsatisfied for sure.