REVIEW: No Funeral & Livid - "No Funeral / Livid" (Split)

By: Charlie Butler

Album Type: Split LP

Date Released: 15/08/2017

Label: Live Fast Die Records

The combination of these two bands on one mammoth slab of wax is a marriage made in hell. No Funeral and Livid are definitely acts to check out now if you like it slow, heavy and desolate.

“No Funeral / Livid” Split LP//DD track listing:

1). No Funeral - Infection

2). No Funeral – Disease Brought By Depression

3). Livid – False Hope

The Review:

This split LP brings together two Minneapolis doom heavyweights united in snail-paced drudgery. No Funeral and Livid both deal in punishing, immersive doom delivered in contrasting styles.

No Funeral immediately establishes an air of quiet foreboding with the cold, bare introduction of “Infection”. Clean guitars are quickly drowned under a torrent of filthy sludge as the band rumble into a lumbering evil riff. There are slight increases in tempo as the track progresses but a grisly doom crawl is maintained throughout, somewhere between Iron Monkey’sbelligerent spite and Unearthly Trance’s bleakest moments. The mood of hopelessness is heightened by the nasty dual vocals, particularly the harsh howls of despair near the start of second track “Disease Brought By Depression”. Here the band dive deeper into the well of misery, building to a harrowing climax where a vocal sample detailing the effects of heroin withdrawal skips and repeats as the track unravels into chaos.

Livid’s side of this split is a single 19 minute epic titled “False Hope”. The oppressive atmosphere of No Funeral’s offering remains but the sludge has been dialled back in favour of spacious dark psychedelia in the vein of Yob or early Pallbearer. There is a stark contrast on the vocal front too but Cole’s Benson’s clean, reverb-assisted delivery instils a similar level of dread via a different mechanism. Over the first half of the track the band wring maximum impact from a gloomy chord sequence before letting a huge riff unfurl out of the dirge and develop over the second half.

The combination of these two bands on one mammoth slab of wax is a marriage made in hell. No Funeral and Livid are definitely acts to check out now if you like it slow, heavy and desolate.

“No Funeral / Livid”is available here

Band info: No Funeral || Livid