I think that Lubricant belongs to the least remembered Finnish death metal bands. Even though they've released several demo tapes, followed by this EP, tell me, how many of you actually know "Nookleptia" at all? Or even better, how many of you have a copy of either CD or vinyl??? Not many I think, which is understandable, as Morbid Records never paid much attention to promote their bands sufficiently, besides Lubricant wasn't your typical fast and brutal death metal band and so their music might have putted off some maniacs.
If you think of Finnish death metal, I guess you'll have bands like Demigod, Demilich, Purtenance, Disgrace or Abhorrence in your mind, right? All pretty aggressive and obviously killer... Some more or less technical, some had traces of melody in their style, but mostly they were fucking brutal. And then there's Lubricant. If you think of Lubricant's demos, the great "Swallow the Symmetric Swab" specially, well, then you might be right saying they were similar to Xysma or whatever. But "Nookleptia" is something different and unique. To me this is like psychedelic rock / death metal. Sounds crazy, I know, but man, I really think that some of these riffs have old school doom feeling to it. And it sounds even more crazy if they're mixed with the grinding parts the band retained from their demos.
But this is why "Nookleptia" sounds so damn cool and weird. "Monohemerous Joy" is one brilliant opener, with some killer fast grinding parts that all of a sudden are followed by more melodic riffing - all pretty cool and infectious. This is fine song, but even though "Declaration Of Gallopping Consumption" follows it in similar way, I have no idea what to think about those twisted, psychorocking parts with some silly clean vocals that appear there? They're ridiculous and sound more like a joke than anything else. The problem is not only that those vocals sound awful and destroy the whole rotten atmosphere of the Lubricant music, but also that they appear in some other songs on "Nookleptia" and personally I can't stand this. "Laceration Of Vasoconstrictive Emotion" (fuckin titles!) for instance might have some cool Carcass worshipping riffs, but then there's this calm guitar with weird spoken voice interrupting it. Why, man?! I just want to hear some fuckin death / grind! It all sounds almost surreal, especially if you have this totally fast fragment in the middle of the song and then there're again those awful clean vocals with rock riffing next to it. Maybe it sounds OK when it's used as a finishing part for the song, but anywhere else it's hardly tolerable for me. For that one thing, I don't really know what to think of "Nookleptia". Shit or good EP?
There are songs like "Expulsive Gastroscopia" and "Monohemerous Joy" on the EP, which are just damn great slabs of grinding death metal in pure Finnish style, similar to Disgrace or Xysma. But I don't think the experiment in using clean vocals and different type of playing really worked here. When it's pure death / grind it's fine; very classic, with cool production and the death metal growls also don't bring any shame to Lubricant. Why changing it, just for the sake of sounding different? I don't know. Anyway, Lubricant never released anything after this EP and maybe that's good, as I fear their next effort would rival Wombbath's "Lavatory" or Xysma and Disgrace full lengths in the ranking of the biggest shit to come out from the ex death metal band ha, ha. Oh, and don't get me wrong, "Nookleptia" is still worth listening to, it's very decent piece of music, it just has this one thing that annoys me so much.
Best song: "Monohemerous Joy"
Final rate: 73 / 100
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