A Lump Of Death: A Chaos Of Dead Lovers by Unverkalt
Release date: October 20, 2023Label: Argonauta Records
Unverkalt are a band as influenced by the movies they watch as the bands they listen to, which leaves A Lump Of Death: A Chaos Of Dead Lovers with a huge cinematic feel. Each track is like a short film, every effort gone into painting such a vivid picture with the power of music alone. It is an ambitious undertaking, but one that the band manage to pull off with a fair degree of success. Sweeping synths with a definite Lynchian twist form the basis of the wall of noise they conjure forth, the foundation allowing the reverb-soaked post-rock guitars to take flight and soar.
The final ingredient is Dimitra Kalavrezou’s haunting vocals, wispy in a way that recalls a soft, warm filter on a shot to bring up some unsettling nostalgia. The whole sound is not dissimilar to a 70s resetting of the Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas collaboration album from a few years ago. And whilst Unverkalt never reach the incredible highs of that record, A Lump Of Death: A Chaos Of Dead Lovers is as good as anything that has tried to fill that hole since.
The emotional swings of the likes of ‘Heart Of Darkness’ and ‘Le Triomphe De La Mort’ are so pleasing, perfectly pitching the ebbs and flows to inexorably draw the listener along, to create something that lingers once the music has stopped. It would be easy to accuse A Lump Of Death: A Chaos Of Dead Lovers of simply being a copycat, but sink a little deeper to find Unverkalt have produced something far more than that. It stands in its own right as a beautiful slice of filmic post-rock, a soundtrack without a movie beyond the one playing in your head.
