Lustmord Lombardo

Discerning metalheads will be well aware of Dave Lombardo's rich history of adventurous artistry. Famed for his ferocious and revolutionary drumming with SLAYER, he was never content to make a living solely in the mainstream metal realm, spending much of the last 30 years indulging every creative whim imaginable. From relatively predictable stints with the likes of SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, TESTAMENT and MISFITS, to multiple collaborations with MIKE PATTON, including both FANTOMAS and DEAD CROSS, and time well spent with EMPIRE STATE BASTARD, PHILM and, most recently, SATANIC PLANET, Lombardo has been a restless and ingenious presence in all manner of alternative, experimental and cacophonous realms. As a result, this team-up with Welsh sound designer, dark ambient maven and all-round musical subversive Brian "Lustmord" Williams makes as much sense as anything else scrawled onto the Cuban-American's resume. A prolific producer of otherworldly and disorientating, freeform sound since the early '80s, Lustmord is perhaps the ideal partner for a drummer whose own solo work has been ruthlessly left-field and challenging. It probably goes without saying that "The Pulse Of Atoms" does not sound like SLAYER.

Best experienced at the kind of earthquake-inducing volume that alienates neighbors, this curious but compelling project dwells more firmly in Lustmord's world than Lombardo's, but the drummer's enthusiasm for the whole thing is more than evident. Comprising seven lengthy tracks of unsettling and ominous textural drone, each one made all the more fascinating via intermittent bursts of inventive and forceful percussion, "The Pulse Of Atoms" is an immersive and wildly evocative affair. It could almost be regarded as an exercise in meditative improvisation, but while there are certainly moments that will allow listeners to drift off into the starry ether, the overall effect is much more oppressive, disturbing and unearthly. The opening, two-part "An Eternal Presence" is the most obviously cinematic piece here, as Lombardo unveils stark shards of clattering drum work amidst woozy, undulating keyboard tones, to delirious effect. In contrast, the closing "The Abyssal Deep" is genuinely horrifying, with Lustmord's inhuman crescendos of sub-aquatic bottom end in a perpetual battle of wills with the Californian's insistent hi-hats and pitch-black, post-jazz pulse.

The rest of The Pulse Of Atoms" fits a similar, off-the-wall template, and veers from the runaway ghost train clatter and howling fog klaxons of "Paleomagnetic Resonance" to the lurching rhythms and blistering ice wind rushes of the two-part "The Desolate Shore". Fans of boundary-pushing, experimental music will be summarily bewitched, and everyone else will either be confused or slightly scared. Dave Lombardo has taught us to expect the unexpected, and herein lies yet another meticulous, mind-expanding curveball.