Ludicra - Fex Urbis Lex Orbis

Artist: Ludicra
Album: Fex Urbis Lex Orbis
Release: 2006
Label: Alternative Tentacles

Tracklist:

1. Dead City
2. In Fever
3. Veils
4. Only A Moment
5. Collapse

Black metal is in an interesting state in the post-millenia we live in. The heroes of the old guard are either playing two-show reunion "tours" at BB King's. Others have their own Draven shoe and have an audience that currently consists of Hot Topic. France contains some of the most experimental BM bands out there. Pretentious radical environmentalists break up their post-hardcore band and create a group whose "black metal" and supposedly hermetic living transcends any of the paganry of their predecessors. Stuck-up art kids learn blast beats and tremelo picking and imbue their songs with condescending, nigh-religious ideologies that they see as "elevated." Meanwhile, in Hollywood, the integrity of extreme music is mocked by a Dethklok Metalocalypse's massive audience of people too dumb to get the in-jokes, and Nic Cage's son has his own black metal band.

Ludicra couldn't be more different from your average Darkthrone-worshiping band, but goddamn if they have anything in common with Cascadian natural living or spectral music, dumb cartoon parody or any symphonic embellishment. The three-quarters-dudes, two-quarters-ladies group has been steadily honing their brand of black metal since 1999. They don't use corpse paint. They never make grandiose statements about being amazingly new and different and avant-garde. And while never resorting to string orchestras, synths, or viking/pagan ephemera to seem "progressive," their sound manages to pack plenty of dynamics, contrast and shifts without ever losing catchiness or coherence. While vocalist Laurie Shanaman's lyrics may never concern occultism or other genre standards, Ludicra's primary focuses-- urban decay, mental illness, addiction and other dark parts of their San Francisco home-- remain just as disturbing.

Aesop Dekker is this band's secret weapon. His consistent, hard-hitting and catchy drumwork never needs to be technical, but never resorts to generic simplicity. Every beat clearly adds to the song. "Dead City"opens with his chilling ride cymbals carefully underpinning the steady riffage of guitarists Christy Cather and John Cobbett and the surprisingly audible low-end of Ross Sewage. Shanaman's howls simply sound like none other; they have black metal despair with just enough death metal bite. Yet on a dime, she can change with Cather and Cobbett's clean breaks to croon with haunting clean vocal. "I'm the feeble crack of light/That shines in spite of all," she sings, before going right back into her shrieking narrative.

"Veils" is one of Ludicra's best tracks, opening with shimmering clean tones before Sewage's bass and Dekker's pounding rush heaviness right back in. The epic closer "Collapse" features steady chugging moving into blast beats and Shanaman's vocals run through a slight vocoder effect, which sounds far more menacing than written description allows.

The band have just released their fourth full-length, The Tenant, and it far outclasses this already-excellent release. The band is on tour literally every day of April (and a bit before, as well), so start here and then go see what is likely metal's most underrated band.

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