David Thrussel is a very productive artist. Last year he served the listener The Grand Chessboard as Black Lung. Recently a Snog remix cd/12” was released and also a Black Lung 12” entitled Karmageddon saw the light earlier this year. The Coming Dark Age , his new album, is a sequel to this last 12”.
As always with David Thrussel this record is a conceptual piece of work. The new, or coming, Dark Age is a near future with shortage of fossil fuel. Track titles like ‘The Great Automobile Hunt’, ‘Armies Of Oil’, Toward The Petrol-Apocalypse’ and of course Karmageddon’ speak for themselves in this context.
Next to that the coming Dark Age is also portrayed as a time on earth with shortage of water and food and worldwide poverty. So, no happy messages about our future.
The music itself is typical Black Lung material. Electro related music, with repetitive rhythms and at time structures that collapse. There are also some industrial and idm influences in some tracks.
Despite the concept the music is not very dark. Highlights are the more soundscape orientated pieces like ‘The Coming Dark Age’ and ‘The New Dark Age’. But, there are also some beat driven tracks that work very well with their minimal approach, such as ‘‘The Great Automobile Hunt’ and ‘Karmageddon’.
The Coming Dark Age is again a decent album but one that will probably mostly interest the fans of the Black Lung sound. There is only a small change David Thrussel will win new ears for his warnings. If that is what he wants he should maybe try some new approaches to his music.
