The Lurking Fear - Out of the Voiceless Grave
"You always find the time to do something if you're inspired." - Tomas Lindberg
The Lurking Fear is no longer just the title of a classic H.P. Lovecraft horror story. It now represents a new five-piece death metal band featuring some of the finest musicians to come out of Sweden. What makes this tale of musical mayhem and violence of particular interest is that it features members of long established acts such as At The Gates, Skitsystem, Disfear and God Macabre, who presumably didn't have time to invest in a project outside their respective bands. But, as Tomas Lindberg - best known as the frontman for At The Gates - states above, The Lurking Fear were in fact very inspired and made the time to create something truly personal and also special.
Teaming up with guitarists Jonas Stålhammar and Fredrik Wallenberg, bassist Andreas Axelson and drummer Adrian Erlandsson, Lindberg and his bandmates wrote 18 songs in a mere two months, recorded three of them for a self-titled EP released this May, and will issue a full length album with 12 songs entitled “Out Of The Voiceless Grave” in the summer of 2017 via Century Media Records. Death metal to the core, the music is heavy, dirty, organic and warm in stark contrast to many modern day productions. The Lurking Fear are all about pre-hi-tech death metal, offering up a satisfyingly traditional old school sound that never devolves into boring and predictable cliché.
"We don't want to try and recreate something that we've done in our other bands," says Lindberg. "And we know what we don't want. There are bands that try too hard to recreate that old school sound, and they make it too dirty and too raw just for the sake of it. We want to make good recordings that sound heavy as fuck and are well produced, but at the same time we want to expose that raw nerve that is missing in some of the more modern stuff."
The Lurking Fear made their recording debut at Welfare Sounds Studios in Gothenburg, Sweden produced by Per Stålberg. They wrote without any expectations save for wanting to make the music sound as live as possible. The EP was recorded in pieces due to time constraints, but the album was recorded with all five musicians in the same room. According to Lindberg, it was very important for the quintet to feel like they are actually in a band together. It's also worth noting that The Lurking Fear’s material is all original; nothing was left over from the members' respective bands.
Lindberg: "The material by The Lurking Fear is all written from scratch. We didn't have anything when we first gathered together in September 2016 and we just started bouncing ideas off each other. We wrote specifically for this band from the get-go, so everything you hear is brand new. This is what happens when the five of us are in the same room, it's as simple as that. It's very natural, very raw; we just wanted to create a full-on death metal record".
As for spearheading the debut album's launch with a three song EP, it all came down to The Lurking Fear's excitement over their new music and wanting to get it out to the public as soon as possible. Century Media Records, who share positive past collaborations with various of the group’s members in other bands, latched onto the idea very quickly, as the EP makes for the best possible pre-promotion for the album. The music stands out on its own merits rather than leaving The Lurking Fear to rely on the band members' respective catalogues.
"That's why we want to steer away from the project / supergroup label," says Lindberg. "The Lurking Fear just happens to be five guys that are in or have been in other bands for a long period of time. We've all known each other since 1989 - me and Jonas were writing letters back and forth and tape trading (laughs) - so I have no idea why it took so long for us to get together and do this."
Everyone who appreciates pure death metal in the vein of Autopsy, (early) Death, Morbid Angel, Possessed or Repulsion, look out for The Lurking Fear’s “Out Of The Voiceless Grave” album
