LICE is a brainchild of TEITANBLOOD's J, and of Niklas Kvarforth, the infant terrible of Black Metal, the closest thing Black Metal has to G. G. Allin, who's known mainly as the front man of the Norwegian Black Metal band SHINING. Kvarforth is a pretty outspoken guy and he never made secret his disdain for the Scandinavian Black Metal scene which - I'm paraphrasing him - is full of people who dress edgy, write Satanic lyrics, but behave like hippies in every day life. SHINING are true innovators of post-Second Wave Black Metal and a big influence on so called Despressive Suicidal Black Metal in particular. Their music is filled with dark, raw emotion, it can feel violent and oppressive. It's a music that relishes in pain and destruction, which is a trait that seems to come directly from Kvarforth's personality. (If you're interested in a closer look at Kvarforth, there was a short movie called Cold Void made about him, that you can check out.)

SHINING was moving away from the typical Black Metal sound on his last two or three albums, they lacked the bite of his early work, and had a more progressive edge. Well, with LICE Kvarforth is - with help of the mysterious Spaniard J - going full-on Progressive, there are all sorts of non-Metal influences on the album which at time sounds almost "singer-songwrity". The album opens a short instrumental "Beyond Eternal Recurrence" that has a tender, atmospheric intro with a weepy guitar melody, followed by upbeat Surf Rock sounding riff and groove. The intro makes it amply clear that this album is not what you'd call a Heavy Metal record, but "Woe Betide You" is by no means a "soft" album either. "Layers of Dirt" has a tranquil opening, but builds up to an emotional outburst - it's accompanied by sex sounds but somehow it doesn't feel corny, which is rather amazing - and the climax of the song clearly has Black Metal undertones. It has the intensity and aggression of Black Metal, just not so much distortion.

Other songs also incorporate Black Metal, "Level Below" and "Pride Eater" both shift between blasty, aggressive parts and more emotional ones - at one point in "Level Below," for example, Kvarforth is serenading about love and heartbreak. It tells you a lot about the musicianship and songwriting skills on display here that these songs (which both over 7 minutes long) can have such a dynamism and emotional range and not seem disjointed or incoherent. But not all songs rely on blast-beats and tremolo picking. "Towards Reality" has a long, tranquil intro with weeping guitar melodies, but the body of the song is brooding and sinister, with a buzzing, heavily distorted main riff. This song doesn't have any unexpected compositional shifts, it's rather minimalist and monotonous, driven forward mainly by the vocal and guitar performances. "Roadkill" is short but full of twists and turns: it starts of as a kind of singer-songwrity ballad, with Kvarforth is channeling his inner Nick Cave; after this comes a section with a heavier groove, the final part is really pumped up and has almost an Industrial harshness to it.

The release of this album is a very interesting moment in Niklas Kvarforth's career. As a musician and singer he always seemed to search for a broader range of expression than a Metal subgenre could contain, and LICE seems to be a culmination of this striving at this point. On "Woe Betide You" Kvarforth strengths manifest themselves: his singing is very versatile and he can be both oppressively harsh and sublimely emotional. Sometimes his vocal performance feel like the singer is twisting a knife in your heart. The music is equally varied and dynamic, but never undirected. This album doesn't contain much extreme Metal, but it is filled with extreme emotions.

Songwiting: 9