Noise, gloomy grindcore and doom infused powerviolence go together like a jigaw puzzle when you find the peices that fit! All the harsh ingredients and violent enforcements of “Failures”, the newest offering from Polish experimental act LWSTNDRDS, enhance each other when employed in close proximity, and we’re thrilled to give its first listen below. Launch the beast below.
Formed in the beginning of 2015 in Zabrze, Poland, LWSTNDRDS (pronounce „low standards”) is a two-piece powerviolence/grind/powerelectronics band from the Silesia district, Poland. The band have released a couple of EPs in cooperation with Lärmo Records and Wungiel Records and one collaborative album with Oskar Cichoń from Emptyz/Sun Still Rises. This year, LWSTNDRDS plan on putting out a couple of live shows across Poland to promote the release of “Failures”.
“Failures” was recorded in our reherseal room between October and November 2018. Produced and mixed by the band themselves, it’s being released physically on SD cards – every piece packed in unique, fabric, embroided case (limited to 20). All the proceeds go to „Daj Herbatę” Foundation.
The band commented:
This is our first album that we can truly appreciate and accept. After a few years we already came to a point when we found the sound we always wanted to create – on this level this is an album that defines us as a band and what we want to communicate through our music. Musically we dive deep into more metallic sound, with the inspirations from veterans, like Deicide, Immolation, Demilich, but we’re also into (not worse) modern bands, like Spectral Voice, Pissgrave or Full Of Hell. Of course we are meeting here some limits with our capability of playing instruments so don’t be misguided: we are still a punk band. This time we also tried to find a better place to fit a harshing, electronic parts – there are less of them on a new album, but we think they’re just exactly where they’re ment to be, making a whole more filthy and gurgling in listener’s ears. Also it’s divided between our fastest and the slowest parts, it’s like „all or nothing” mechanisms. Lyrically we’re still struggling with empathy for the world on the one hand and constant feeling of disgust on the other hand. We’ve never wanted to be that kind of „regressive misanthropy” band, so our songs are filled with some kind of altruism, even if some of their titles seem to say something totally different. The title „Failures” refers to matter of life itself – to suffer endlessly and how to avoid this misery, how to endure it.
1) Blossoming
This is the song about the meaningless „friendships” that everyone of us have came through; it’s always been good for some time, but when you try to evolve personally you realise that you don’t meet their abusive, worthless expectations anymore. Also I always loved a references to the nature and those kind of metaphors in lyrics, so here we are – cutted piece of face as a petal of iris.
2) Hollow
I wrote it after the lecture of Malewicz’s „The Non-Objective World”, for me one of the defining texts about the XX-century art and philosophy. I feel the connection between the idea of an art that breaks up with the presentation of phenomena and the life itself, which is just an accumulation of false views and stereotypical „landschafts”; but under this cover we find nothing but emptiness and an overwhelming burden of freedom.
3) Failure
It’s just as simple as its title – a failure is inscribed in humanity and all we can do is just to accept it. Simple labor.
4) Dissapointment And Then Death
The whole feeling of this song refers straight to the previous one – we all have the moments of hope, but after them always hide a possibility of failure and dissapointment. And then we die.
5) Wandering
This is our widest (some kind of metaphysical) look on the world we live in: from the longer perspective we know that some time our selfishness will end and every single one of us will become a part of nature that we try to annihilate and control. Anthropocene is the shit.
6) Herz Aus Glas
Our shortest song to date. I think we really presented our approach on composing on this one – it ends when it didn’t really expand. If we make a riff or part that we really like we always prefer to play it twice and cut it immediately instead of pulling it on forever. The title and lyrical content refers to Herzog’s „Herz Aus Glas” movie. It’s beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
7) Bright Eyes
I have a kind of obsession with the picture of a person rolling eyes to the back of his head, like he wants to look to the center of his mind. It’s a big merit in a lecture of Bataille’s „Story Of The Eye”. With this one I tried to get back to our first few songs which have more refferences to the physiological descriptions of void we all carry in ourselves.
Continued below…
8) Futility
In this song we used a quote from „Kohelet” (with great english translation from Noraa Kaplan – much love for her work). The song relates to the theme of vanitas and you know what to expect – endless oceans of misery and yourself in the center of it, looking to the sky and seeing not even a little sign of hope.
9) Hiob
Our first song with title in polish, because „Hiob” just sounds better than the English version – „Job”. We turned this biblical figure into a modern, abandoned, homeless wreck. Worthless, loathsome and hated by everyone. But, not as we know it from the Bible, at the very end there’s no reward or salvation, but a death in a stinking gutter. So it hurts.
