Lucifer: Lucifer V (2024, Nuclear Blast)

Three years have passed since Lucifer released its excellent fourth studio album, one of the strongest in its promising career, which this year celebrates a decade since its formation. When Johanna Sadonis announced in 2014 that she was breaking her pact with guitarist Linnéa Olsson and that The Oath ceased to exist, it was a great moment of sadness that in 2015 resulted in a huge debut album like Lucifer I (2015, Rise Above), which came later is now part of the history of music.

The band has gone through several lineup changes throughout these ten years of existence, maintaining Johanna as the undisputed leader and only original member since its formation in 2014. Since 2017 it has among its ranks the visionary drummer Nicke Andersson who is a true celebrity in Swedish death metal for his contribution to the genre as drummer and founder of Nihilist before changing his name to Entombed, as well as for having designed both the logo and the covers of Entombed before founding his other highly successful and recognized band as The Hellacopters. Guitarists Martin Nordin and Linus Björklund and bassist Harald Göthblad complete the lineup that has remained stable since 2019 and has already given life to the albums Lucifer III (2020, Century Media) and Lucifer IV (2021, Century Media).

From what I’ve read, this is Lucifer‘s definitive album, which is probably the best of his career to date. And I can not agree more. Although Lucifer has drawn enormously from bands like Black Sabbath or Blue Öyster Cult, something that the band has expressed on countless occasions, it has managed to distance itself from these labels to offer something new and different whose greatest attraction is the spectacular voice of its vocalist and leader Johanna Sadonis, whose vocal range seems to improve with each album that Lucifer releases. A clear example of Johanna‘s amazing voice is the catchy song At The Mortuary, second song on the album, in which she offers one of her best performances leading Lucifer to date.

Another of the aspects that surprised me the most about the album is the variety of songs that make up its tracklist, from songs with a clear orientation towards doom like Slow Dance In A Crypt, a dark pseudo ballad that torments you from the inside and that easily could appear in a Hammer monster movie, to much more lively and rock songs as in the case of Strange Sister or the lively Fallen Angel that opens the album. Of all the previews published up to the album’s release date, I definitely choose the raw and tremendously interesting A Coffin Has No Silver Lining without a doubt, whose choruses catch you at all times and make you descend into the deepest darkness, but with great elegance.

What is most surprising about Lucifer V is the enormous amount of melodic riffs that populate the album, an exceptional work by Linus Björklund and Martin Nordin that was already present in their previous work but that here manages to provide much more depth to an album whose atmosphere is governed by the rhythmic basis of bassist Harald Göthblad and the always accomplished drummer Nicke Andersson. I would like to give Nicke much more prominence because he is one of my idols in Swedish music, but even though in Lucifer he does an exceptional job like in the opening of the intense Maculate Heart, his work is always overshadowed by a brilliant voice like of his wife Johanna.

There is no better way to close an album as special as Lucifer V other than with the slow and heartbreaking Nothing Left To Lose But My Life, a true anthem that manages to close the album with great strength and with all the elegance of a band that works. wonderfully, with a certain aroma of Pentagram and Trouble. Once again I surrender to the excellent choirs and the very powerful voice of Johanna, a barrage of sensations and emotions that invade me every time I listen to her, which I can only praise as she well deserves.

If I had to highlight something negative about the album, it is its short duration. It’s not that the album is short, since its total duration is close to 40 minutes, but it seems too short to me and I would like it to last another 40 minutes, although that is my problem. When you really like something you wish it would never end, but all good things have an ending and Lucifer V ends wonderfully with Nothing Left To Lose But My Life. The Swedish five-piece has done it again and you can’t do anything other than take your hat off to Lucifer‘s best album to date

Tracklist:

1. Fallen Angel
2. At The Mortuary
3. Riding Reaper
4. Slow Dance In A Crypt
5. A Coffin Has No Silver Lining
6. Maculate Heart
7. The Dead Don’t Speak
8. Strange Sister
9. Nothing Left To Lose But My Life

Lucifer V will be released on January 26 via Nuclear Blast in CD, red vinyl and gold/black splatter vinyl, although pre-orders of the splatter vinyl are already sold out through the official Lucifer store. You can pre-order the album through Nuclear Blast as well.