Lugola – You Are Not Special (Album – Steinklang Industries)
Genre/Influences: Death-Industrial.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: Polish project Lugola is driven by Michal Kielbasa (who’s also involved with a few more projects). “You Are Not Special” has been announced as getting back to the roots of the artist; being his most extreme and radical album ever.
Content: The ‘extreme’ and ‘radical’ approach is directly revealed with the artwork of the album –especially the pictures inside the digipak. These visions of horror and torture have been transposed into sonic horror. Boiling noises have been mixed with hostile sound atmospheres and vocals sounding like exclamations. The heaviest cuts are right at the end, reaching an ultimate point of discomfort and stupor.
+ + + : Lugola sounds like having a mission; creating a state of discomfort by the listener! It moves further than simply ‘extreme’ and ‘radical’, but it has something perverted! But that’s precisely what some listeners will like; becoming a kind of masochistic subject to the ‘sadistic noise artist’. This is Death-Industrial with less power than most of the projects, but with extra disturbance instead. “Cut” is a true apotheosis of this strange sonic rite, being empowered by an extra and more Industrial kick.
– – – : I would have liked to hear more tracks in the line of “Cut”; this track having something extra and different from the rest of the tracklist.
Conclusion: Lugola is the antithesis to ‘happy music’ and ‘feel good’ songs; it’s an evil and dangerous listening you better consume with moderation!
Best songs: “Cut”, “Consume”, “Better Cancel Yourself”.
Rate: 7½.
Artist: www.facebook.com/lugolaofficial
Label: www.steinklang.org / www.facebook.com/steinklang
About Lugola
Lugola is the power electronics project of Polish musician Michał “Neithan” Kiełbasa. Recordings under the name run from “Abyss” in 2012 through “Harmony In Despair” in 2017 and “Grief Design” in 2020.
“You Are Not Special” was released by Steinklang Industries in 2021 as a limited CD in co-operation with Underground Alliance, with a cassette edition issued by Heerwegen Tod Production in 2022. A concert recorded at the twentieth Wrocław Industrial Festival appeared as “Deform” on Zoharum in 2022, and “Hades” followed on Heerwegen Tod Production in 2023.
Support Side-Line
More people read Side-Line than ever, and there is still no paywall and no advertising. Readers pay for it instead - from $5 a month.
Why we ask
Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations we have not put up a paywall, and we refuse to add annoying advertising, so we need to ask for your help. Side-Line’s independent journalism takes time, money and hard work to produce, and we do it to push the artists we like, who are equally fighting to survive.
Handled by PayPal.
I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
