Lahannya
When reading an artists’ bio I’m very wary of the whole “For fans of…” statement. I understand the intention behind it, a quick way to let people know what ball park the band are or wish they were playing in, but too often these lists read as pretentious wankfests, and the music ends up sounding too much like a band trying to emulate their heroes.
That being said, apparently Lahannya is for fans of Lacuna Coil, Birthday Massacre and Marilyn Manson. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? It’s okay, embrace the judgment. Get it out of your system. It feels good doesn’t it?
So, moving on…The “Welcome to the Underground” EP was released by Anglo-German Industrial Rock group Lahannya in early 2008. Yes, 2008 (it has not escaped my attention that I am reviewing an EP released 12 months ago). Ignoring that, “Welcome to the Underground” presents a prequel to a story which will unfold on the bands second album, due to be released in September this year. It is based around your typical Orwellian nightmare - a surveillance society, where the powers that be rule with an iron fist and personal freedoms are a thing of the past. An underground opposition made up of non-conformists and free-thinkers is rising to fight back, and, well, you get the idea.
At this point some of you may be thinking this all sounds a little familiar. Of course, a future where the erosion of personal freedoms by a warmongering Government has finally led to an underground resistance movement developing is a concept that has been dealt with quite consistently in literature and film in particular, but in 2007 Nine Inch Nails released “Year Zero”, a concept album criticizing the then contemporary policies of the United States government by presenting a dystopian vision of the year 2022.
French Cultural Theorist Jean Baudrillard once wrote that “writing should be less a representation of reality then its transfiguration and should pursue a ‘fatal strategy’ of pushing things to extremes.” The same could be said about most creative endeavors, music included. With that in mind, and given the thematic content of this EP, it is this writers’ belief that Lahannya could have taken this concept much further sonically than they have. It features four brand new tracks and some remixes, and demonstrates Lahannya’s evolved sound fusing alternative rock, industrial and dark electro, but it just doesn’t sound as urgent as the thematic content implies.
Apparently the full length coming out in a few months is going to be the band’s “darkest and most aggressive sounding release to date”, so fingers crossed they take the template from “Welcome to the Underground”, violate the shit out of it, and spew out some vitriol worthy of the subversive, if formulaic, concept.
If you’re a fan of Lacuna Coil, Birthday Massacre, or Marilyn Manson, you should enjoy this.