TRACK LISTING

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*Comments:

1.  Opening
2.  Pulling Down the Sky
3.  Approaching Lucidity
4.  Intermission
5.  Invention of the Monsters
6  .Hymn to the Forest of Pixels
7.  Incarceral Form
8.  The Hanging

Total playing time: 63:54

Release Date: April 2, 2011
Label: Band Self Released

Leucosis - Pulling Down the Sky

Reviewer: Chris

July 18, 2011

In the accompanying note that came with Leucosis’ CD for review it was stated that the band is labeled as atmospheric black metal and the writer wasn’t really sure what that means. Well, Jeff, I can tell you that these days I’m not sure what it means either. It used to mean that a black metal band took some very deep and dark thoughts and assigned them musical notation and placement (usually by way of keyboard or synthesizer, but occasionally a guitarist got the gist) to work in tandem with already bleak music to give it an added ‘depth’ or a ‘fuller’ feel. As with everything those days are long gone, a relic of years past when originality was king and black metal was something feared and misunderstood.

The trouble is now everyone understands black metal…or this rape-and-pillage product of today, anyway. Or at least they claim to, which I think is more of the former and a generous offering of the latter.

So, the main question here for me is, Is Leucosis a black metal band, and are they any good? Hailing from Santa Cruz out in Cali, the band is issuing its first full-length by way of Pulling Down the Sky, a lengthy, often tempestuous piece that screams more, and again I shudder to use these damn silly labels, ‘post-black metal’ than full-on black metal. For me, black metal is supposed to solicit feelings of hatred, anger, sorrow, violence, malevolence, abandonment, isolation and cold. These elements are non-negotiable and absolutely necessary to have a successful ‘black’ aura. While Leucosis has some isolation and sorrow within its sound this music says Alcest or Lantlos more than Burzum or Leviathan. That’s not to say it’s necessarily a negative, but let’s get our silly cross-labels right.

The music on Pulling Down the Sky is okay, steeped with moments of despair and even mock departure complete with airy, breathy vocals that are, as usual, buried in the mix for effect. When the vocals serve more of a device than an instrument the line in the sand is blurred even more. To be frank, there is nothing overly memorable here that hasn’t been done a thousand times and won’t be done a thousand more until some other musical fad takes over and leads the rats out of town to the next ‘big thing’. That’s not to say that Leucosis doesn’t have some decent ideas because they certainly do, but their ideas are impossibly overshadowed by the masses of opportunists that forced themselves onto this frail entity and left it battered and for dead time and time again. It’s a sad world indeed when the masses are so easily led.

What the band accomplishes on this album is a hour’s worth of music that at times appears to have some lifelessness to it, which is as complimentary as I can be, yet it suffers from songs that go on too long and muddy the water to make it appear deep. I’m not sure who initiated the idea of Hey, let’s make it longer so it’ll stick more in the head when it comes to atmospheric music like this, but whoever did it must have looked like a genius once but is now a hunted pariah. The one track that I found interesting was “Invention of the Monsters” because it seemed to encompass all of the elements of black metal rather nicely without all of the pomp and circumstance associated with the ‘scene’ (yep, it’s no longer a movement). There’s some truly decent music here that ascends momentarily over the mire of black metal banality and sticks, ever briefly, in your craw and pecks away at your senses. Its lo-fi, under-produced efforts are not lost on me when it comes to the formulaic blueprint, but maybe someone else might really love every second of this music. I simply found it decent but I’m ready to move on.

My teeter-totter of feelings are pretty simplified in the statement that if you don’t mind your scenic black metal much of the same old, same old then Leucosis might be your ideal. However, if you’ve been around the black metal movement from its very inception and have literally seen it all and heard even more then you will most assuredly find the band somewhat entertaining if not resonating.