Album Review: Lo! - Monstrorum Historia

When, untrumpeted, Lo! arrived with their stellar debut, Look And Behold, an impressive pedigree (Omerata, 28 Days, Huntsmen) did little to prepare audiences for what this beast was; an assault, an expansive dominance of all things 'heavy' and musical. Lo! were hardcore, or metal, or doom, or sludge, it didn't matter, they were all of the above and more importantly fucking good. And they still are.

Album two, Monstrorum Historia, continues the trend. It's a heady mix of tense ominousness trapped in bleak, sludgy riffs that breaks out into moments of frantic freneticism, the transition between the two occurring, often multiple times, in the space of a single song – as on Ghost Promenade, Bleak Vanity and Palisades Of Fire, where Jamie-Leigh Smith's vocals are at their most impressive – or deftly across tracks, as in the transition from the desperate and angry gallop of Caruncula to the instrumental ghost town Western that is Haven, Beneath Weeping Willows, or the cruel bleak atmospherics of Crooked Path: The Strangers Ritual, which explode into the album's first single, Lichtenberg Figures.

It's invigorating, morbid, terrifying and further proof that Lo! are one of the most interesting and talented proponents of heavy music in Australia right now. While the rest of the pack capitalise on the rising popularity of pristine and soulless made-for-nightclub metal, this foursome just do it right. They've just embarked on their first European tour and Monstrorum Historia points as to why; this is world class.