Aussie blackened sludge veterans Lo! have returned in 2023 bigger and better than ever. To celebrate the release of their highly anticipated new album The Gleaners out now via Pelagic Records, they announce a string of headline shows in June and July for The Gleaners Album Launch Tour with special guests Black Lava.
A soul-ripping hell-ride across nine visceral anthems, Lo!’s third full length album The Gleaners is an affair of raw violence, with a touch of sophisticated madness. Aimed at executing crushing judgment upon the tyrants who put the poor to powder, the long-awaited release is set over an overarching storyline with multiple characters, all set to a symphony of sonic death and destruction. The Gleaners showcases Lo! via a terrifying vision of the infernal madness of reality alongside some stellar sludgy blackened hardcore.
Lo! herald the end of the existing order of things, executing crushing judgement upon those tyrants who put the poor to powder.
On The Gleaners Lo! firmly continue in the vein of their much-lauded third album, setting an over-arching storyline with multiple characters to a symphony of sonic death and destruction. “Vestigial opened up the writing arena for Lo! in many ways,” explains guitarist and main-songwriter Carl Whitbread about the predecessor of The Gleaners. “We created an album of anthems without losing the groove or viciousness of performing live, using defined characters and themes that are revisited and interwoven across the record, while also experimenting with atmospheric and cinematic samples to breathe life into the recording.”
From afar, The Gleaners would seem like a fair breeding ground for conspiracists, and it does make a grander scheme of things seem plausible, both for skeptics as well as free thinkers. However, don’t be deceived! At the base of The Gleaners lies a hardcore search for freedom and truth that leaves nothing to the imagination. From the one-two punch of album opener Our Fouling Larder and Salting the Earth to the d-beat destruction of Rat King and the massive culmination of Cannibal Culture, Lo! leave you little opportunity to catch your breath. Even the more atmospheric tracks like Pareidolia or the title track feel crushingly heavy not despite but because of their slower pace. Above all, this record is nothing but a firm rattling of your cage – and who could expect something else from the minds of this Australian quartet who have been churning out nothing but stellar sludgy blackened hardcore over the past twelve years? Like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, the storyline of The Gleaners has little of a focal point, the characters crawl all over the place – its chaos is complete – but somehow its impact is phenomenal. Lo! have gone and done it again, creating a terrifying vision of the infernal madness of our reality that shakes you to your core!
LO!
THE GLEANERS ALBUM LAUNCH TOUR 2023
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS BLACK LAVA
TOUR DATES
SATURDAY 10 JUNE – THE EVELYN, MELBOURNE
FRIDAY 16 JUNE – HOPE AND ANCHOR, ADELAIDE
SATURDAY 17 JUNE – CROWBAR, SYDNEY
SATURDAY 15 JULY – THE TRIFFID, BRISBANE
Tickets on sale now at lookandbehold.net
