ALBUM REVIEW: Twilight Insurgency – Lunar Blood

Devotees of the HM-2 assemble! New Jersey death metallers LUNAR BLOOD are here to make a bludgeoning entrance with their debut full-length Twilight Insurgency. Following on from their 2020 demo, it’s a slab of vile death metal dripping in the aforementioned pedal’s chainsaw-esque violence. It owes a debt, of course, to the crushing, cavernous fare of legends like ENTOMBED and DISMEMBER, while also looking to the hardcore sensibilities of the bands who’ve helped bring the iconic sound back to the fore over the past decade or so. With those comparisons, you’ll probably already know what to expect here, but that certainly doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.

Twilight Insurgency sees LUNAR BLOOD razor through a mean nine tracks in just 27 minutes. The songs on this record primarily take the form of short, sharp punches, with titles like Purified Rot and Gnawed giving a good idea of the band’s stomach-churning brutality. They keep the album moving along with an intense urgency, ensuring that its primal attack never really wears off. It all sounds great too; the guitars cut through with that typical HM-2 bite, while the rhythm section remains crisp and tight throughout. Vocalist Jacob Kruger slots in nicely, his grim gutturals sitting relatively low in the mix without ever feeling overly buried.

With this set-up, LUNAR BLOOD provide plenty to satisfy even the most violently-inclined of listeners. Third track Gastrointestinal Industrial Complex delivers a brutal D-beat bludgeoning, for example, while Parliament Of Trees is one of the filthiest stink-face inducers you’ll hear all year. The aforementioned Gnawed stands out too, this one balancing out a slower doomier stomp with some chaotic noisy flourishes. In amongst all these comes the tortured and screamy interlude of fourth track Ululating In The Depths, as well as a few carefully selected and often quite niche film samples – these drawn from sources as varied as Pet Sematary, director Werner Herzog, and even Chicken Run of all places.

While such samples suggest a knowing sense of OTT to Twilight Insurgency, LUNAR BLOOD also clearly take their music seriously. Lyrically and thematically, this album draws disgusted inspiration from a litany of horrors, including war, state violence and oppression. Admittedly, Kruger’s vocals are largely unintelligible, but the lyrics provided for recent single Wrath March lay the record’s themes bare. There’s certainly no risk of the band being misunderstood here, with Kruger spewing forth lines like “Speak that slur one more time/It’s hard to do with my knife in your fucking throat”. It’s merciless stuff, but then what did you expect from a band as devoted to violence as these guys are?

Ultimately, all this comes together to provide a rock solid debut from LUNAR BLOOD. What this album may lack in individualism and identity, it makes up for in sheer brute force. The tight runtime works well, and the production is pitch perfect for what the band set out to achieve. Add to this a refusal to compromise on both their musical and political ferocity and you’ve got a welcome entry to what’s already proving yet another strong year for death metal. The HM-2 delivers again!

Rating: 7/10

Twilight Insurgency is set for release on February 18th via Pulverised Records.

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