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Lemming Project: Extinction
27/12/10 || Habakuk
Why do I have to think of blue-clad little men with green hair all the time? Maybe because these guys chose a shit name for their death metal band. Lemmings are not death metal, and they hadn’t been so before the 1991 game came out either, so the excuse of having the name first doesn’t fly. Then again, death metal was but a rough sketch in some basements across the Atlantic when this band took off in ’86.
In 1991, Lemming Project came out with their first full-length, “Extinction” – and after their second one (which I consider a lot weaker than the debut) in 1992, they were gone again, with parts of the band continuing in a sort of dodgy fun-grind/punk outfit until much later. Anyway, “Extinction” being the first shows a band more or less walking new ground. Not many bands in the german-speaking sphere played this sort of death metal at the time, Morgoth maybe, or Pungent Stench in Austria, but that’s about it.
It’s not revolutionary, don’t get me wrong – what Lemming Project did was basically downtuned thrash, make it a good deal slower and heavier (I don’t want to speak of “doom”, though), add some blasts and doublebass, and a lot of punching groove. Not so much the sludgy stuff that Pungent Stench excelled at, but a rather mechanical version of the G to the Roove. And although they use common means like hollow-sounding grunts, a rumbling bass in the background, simplistic, crushing guitars with the odd disharmonic overtone and biting anti-society lyrics, they manage to create that special something, like an underlying sense of darkness and disillusion, to their music. Yes, you can do that without keyboards.
You know, back then a band like this didn’t have to reinvent the wheel, all they needed were a few great riffs, some undirected hatred and a feel for a good kick in the stomach. In terms of songwriting, not everything on “Extinction” flows perfectly and the overall feel is a bit raw, but everything comes across as genuinely crafted, taking a clear direction and in the end being very enjoyable. From today’s standpoint, there obviously are heaps of more “extreme” bands, but personally, I’ll take a unique-sounding old school outfit over those any day, especially if they present quality stuff like this.
- Information
- Released: 1991
- Label: Noise Records
- Website: Lemming Project at Metal Archives
- Band
- Hendrik Vangerow: vocals
- Michael Schmale: guitars
- Volker Schmitz: guitars
- Thomas Jaschke: bass
- Thorsten Zielret: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Injection
- 02. Hysteria
- 03. Dust
- 04. Experiments
- 05. Zerfall
- 06. The sperm of a new generation
- 07. Ovens
- 08. Rejections
- 09. Out of my ghetto
- 10. H
