ALBUM REVIEW: Stinking Lizaveta - "Journey to the Underworld"

By: Charlie Butler

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 17/02/2017

Label: Translation Loss

Stinking Lizaveta’s new album “Journey to the Underworld” finds the band in deadly form, crafting music that is seriously weird and complex yet still delivers an addictive riff high.

“Journey to the Underworld” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. Witches and Pigs

2. Chorus of Shades

3. Sharp Stick in the Eye

4. Six Fangs

5. Blood, Milk and Honey

6. Journey to the Underworld

7. Love Song For Jusu

8. A Stranger's Welcome

9. Allegro

The Review:

It’s an impressive feat for a band to be in their 23^rd year of existence to release an LP that sounds as raw and hungry as a debut. Stinking Lizaveta’s new album “Journey to the Underworld” finds the band in deadly form, crafting music that is seriously weird and complex yet still delivers an addictive riff high.

The Philadelphia trio have honed their idiosyncratic sound to perfection here, delivered with a telepathic tightness. The band’s style of riffage recalls retro rockers like of Earthless and Comets On Fire but is so vital and fresh it could only have come from the present. Instead of the endless molten jams into the outer realms of the previously mentioned acts, Stinking Lizaveta travel just as far into the unknown but tie themselves into carefully orchestrated labyrinthine constructions but still find room for wild unhinged solos.

The propulsive drive of opener “Witches and Pigs” contains traces of proper Thin Lizzy-esque classic rock while “Chorus of Shades” features some glorious shredding and irresistible leads that are steeped in NWOBHM. “Sharp Stick in the Eye” is an almost funky strut with a groove that winds itself tighter and tighter as the band’s playing gets more frenetic.  There is a heaviness and darkness in these songs though that sees them slip across into noise rock territory, an underlying nastiness that adds a sweet sharpness to proceedings.

The title track seems them ease up a little on the intensity to allow a little psychedelic rock to bubble to the surface. “A Stranger’s Welcome” sees them employ passages of acoustic guitar to bring a spaghetti western dustbowl feel which although brief provides a powerful contrast to the epic riffage that surrounds it.

“Journey to the Underworld” is another incredible release from a truly unique band. Stinking Lizaveta manage to make instrumental metal that sounds like nothing else out there. Here’s to another 23 years of madness 

“Journey to the Underworld” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook