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LUCIFER
Lucifer II

Century Media (2018)
Rating: 8.5/10

And here we are again, all leathered and lathered up for another bout of throwback rock from Lucifer, the band fronted by the mercurial and devilish sorceress Johanna Sadonis. Only this time its former Entombed and Hellacopters man Nicke Andersson (replacing Cathedral’s Gaz Jennings) who brings fresh blood to a style of heavy rock that in the sense of many bands within the genre, has become stale.

On this second outing we get less, say, psychedelic stoner / doom and more of an edgier 70s vibe, although the band is still responsible for some killer biker grooves.

If you’ve seen the cheesy promo video for opener ‘California Son’ – where the posse look as if they’ve stepped straight off the set of cult 70s British movie Psychomania – then you would of heard the well-oiled if somewhat predictable riff that sounds stripped from Black Sabbath’s 1973 Sabbath Bloody Sabbath opus. But it’s easy on the ear stuff, combing a wide range of influences in its road trip to hell and beyond, as Lucifer once again head down those retro straits. Where it leads them we’ll have to wait and see, although I see severe limits within these sorts of musical frameworks where at one end we had the more psychedelic and watery Purson, and then onto far heavier and all-out doom chimes.

This sophomore album is somewhat predictable even if the leather-clad gang has opted for more summery vibes, with ‘Dreamer’, and its promo video, wafting towards Fleetwood Mac meets The Wicker Man and the Manson Family. The eventual sludged up riffs are well coupled with Sadonis’s rather simple yet effective tones as she drags us with some mesmeric quality into the hippiedom of the 70s, where it’s all green fields and not an ounce of satanic whispering to be heard. This leads me to believe that maybe Lucifer has stepped outside the occult realm, and instead focusing on maybe trickles of Ronnie James Dio and his vivid and mystical imagination as further moody waves of riffage come crawling.

The kaleidoscopic moments do still exist; ‘Eyes In The Sky’ is wistful and acid-soaked, while ‘Faux Pharaoh’ is represented with a withering doom riff and haunting vocal whirls. So, the “metal” is very much there and so is that air of darkness, but when one considers that Johanna Sadonis is the only surviving member from the 2015 debut opus it seems only natural that the sound would change and evolve into something a tad different.

In fact, at times this new record is a very different beast, and it’s for the positive. Due to Andersson’s involvement – on guitar and percussion – the sound feels looser, a bit more “rock ‘n’ roll” for want of a better term, with more unorthodox expressions such as the folky ‘Before The Sun’.

The inclusion of a cover of the Rolling Stones tune ‘Dancing With Mr D’ suggests that Sadonis wanted to take things up a notch, and for people to perceive the band as having more oomph. So, overall, Lucifer II is a classic rock record… the cloak is off, the dagger is in the dish washer and yet there’s a pout while the chest is forced out.

Special mention must go to Robin Tidebrink’s leads which add an inimitable fire that would no doubt get the Devil hopping. I’m almost thankful that the band has become more straight-laced, lapping at the likes of Uriah Heep, Deep Purple and Bad Company instead of Satan’s now well-tongued orifice, even if ‘Reaper On Your Heels’ bounds with occult excitement.

However, the barrel-chested percussion on ‘Aton’, the edgy, driving rockin’ of ‘Phoenix’ and the almost sparse use of any gimmicks throughout puts Lucifer’s sophomore full-length offering into the higher echelons when it comes to modern rock records; this whole cauldron now emptied of its more bewitching bubbles, instead being replaced by engine oil and attitude in abundance.

Neil Arnold

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