Lychgate are a band from the United Kingdom that has had music reviewed before in this zine and on this recording plays a very progressive and avant garde mixture of black and funeral doom metal and this is a review of their 2020 ep "Also sprach Futura" which will be released in March by Debembur Morti Productions.
A very dark and heavy sound starts off the album while all of the musical instruments also have a very powerful sound to them. The songs also mix in a great amount of avant garde elements along with the faster sections also adding in a lot of blast beats and clean vocals can also be heard at times.
Death metal growls are also added into some parts of the music while the solos and leads are done in a very melodic yet progressive style. The slower sections of the songs are also very heavily rooted in funeral doom metal along with the songs also adding in a decent mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts and the music also mixes in some blackened screams in some parts of the recording.
Clean playing, organs and mellotron's can also be heard in certain sections of the recording as well as one track also adding in a brief use of spoken word parts along with the music also taking some of the mid 90's avant garde black metal style and mixing it with some more modern influences. The production sounds very professional while the lyrics cover transhumanism, simulacra and simulation, post-humanity, the uncanny valley, Pygmalionism, and the fictional machine Golem XIV which exceeds human intelligence.
In my opinion this is another great sounding recording from Lychgate and if you are a fan of progressive, avant garde black metal and funeral doom metal, you should check out this ep. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Progeny Of The Singularity" and "Vanity Ablaze". 8 out of 10.