Lustmord Lombardo
The Pulse Of Atoms
Ipecac Recordings
Your thoughts on the probability or upside of a collaboration between Lustmord’s Brian Williams and Dave Lombardo might hinge upon your familiarity with the latter’s resume. Lombardo’s groundbreaking work during his tenure Slayer has of course made him one of metal’s most celebrated drummers, but if you look beyond both that and his stints in the likes of Mr. Bungle and Testament and towards his more experimental side (musically recreating an execution night phone call to Gary Gilmore for Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle, teaming with DJ Spooky, and even reimagining Vivaldi’s Four Seasons), working with one of dark ambient’s undisputed masters doesn’t seem like a bridge too far.
Despite the even distribution of labour the project’s title suggests, the lion’s share of The Pulse Of Atoms has the feel of a solo Lustmord record: ominous drones slide and shift over one another while abyssal horn blasts take on much of the actual harmonic colour. The percussion on “An Eternal Presence Part II: Relentless” isn’t so far removed from that found in recent Lustmord works, and speaking of which, those (like this writer) who enjoyed the subtle orchestral ambitions of 2024’s Much Unseen Is Also Here will hear a continuation of its understated but eerie use of woodwinds on “Beyond The Vast Cold Waste”. It’d be presumptuous, though, to imagine that the martial bombast of much of the percussion which runs through these seven pieces is all coming at Williams’ behest; Lombardo’s credited with “synthetics and editing” as well as percussion; the cinematic scope of familiar Lustmord territory may well be something Lombardo was interested in exploring.
All that being said, you don’t keep a Ferrari stuck in the garage and you don’t team up with the dude who knocked out the double bass break on “Angel Of Death” just to have him do military drumming. “The Desolate Shore Part I: Submergence” is one such track where Lombardo’s chops fully come into play – opening the piece with skittering, freeform improvisations before being subsumed within Williams’ deep sea drones (as the title suggests), falling in and out of a nodding groove, spiking the mix with frantic fills. The polyrhythmic forest of “Paleomagnetic Resonance” isn’t quite as aggressive, but its shifts in and out of step with some snarling horns is no less disquieting.
For two men whose music has been celebrated as some of the most technically proficient and weighty in their respective fields, both Williams and Lombardo have been wholly unpretentious and open in their collaborations (see Williams’ work with artists ranging from The Melvins to Karin Park to Nagamatzu, not to mention his better known Gristle connections). That fluidity allows their differences to stand astride one another well, but also identifies some commonalities which underscore their respective gifts.
