Lust Hag : Irrevocably Drubbed
When you think about it, it’s no surprise that black metal, a genre typified by both individuality and self-expression, as well as a desecration of traditions, attracts those on society’s margins. Not in large part, mind you. Black metal is full of weirdos, and always has been, but there’s been a growing presence of trans artists within the scene. The highest profile case is Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix in Liturgy (debates about whether or not the group are black metal aside) with more cropping up in the genre’s underground over the past few years. One such act is Lust Hag, the one-woman project from Montana by Eleanor Harper. By and large, she communicates with black metal’s tongue: her lyrics detail solitude and destruction, her social media pages read: “NO TRENDS NO PRODUCTION NO AFFILIATIONS JUST RIFF AND ANGUISH!!,” and her initial inspiration for the project was being “pissed off and wanted to make something aggressive.”
Except, there’s a hammer smashed face on the cover of Irrevocably Drubbed, Lust Hag’s second full-length record that released in May. Then, there’s an eerie similarity between “Stifled Glare” and Bolt Thrower’s “The Killchain.” You can even hear traces of early Obituary in the tempo-changing riff on “An Ever Looming Tree.” This is all to say that Irrevocably Drubbed is not solely second-wave black metal worship. The nihilism and texture are there, but Harper is equally informed by death metal.
To say that Irrevocably Drubbed is indebted to black and death metal is not to state that it’s modern blackened death metal. The key difference is that the chaos funnels towards a groove. It’s evident on “Feed the Mother Monolith” whose central groovy riff acts as an anchor. Yes, darkness is found in the conventional melding of synths, tremolo picking, and blast beats, but Harper tethers it to basal stimulation—riffs and rhythms that, historically, pair with songs about zombies and ghouls. She wields the sort of guitar licks that plow through beer cans and resultantly, due to how gratifying they are, mystifies the real-world dangers she sings of. That is, until you open the lyric booklet.
Harper continues the theme of her first album, Lust Hag, which detailed the experiences of a transwoman in rural Montana. As is the case for black metal, her words are blunt and tactless, stumbling when they don’t work. Yet, when they do, they are direct in a manner trans voices cannot usually be in public discussions as there is a pressure for them to act with grace. The closing track, “Humilation Ritual,” begins with “Freak of fucking nature/ Disgusting bitch of blasphemous alteration/ Medical interference of gods creation,” a syllable salad typical to extreme metal that’s lost in the throes of Harper’s shrieks. But she uses harshness as a medium that removes any pleasantries in her words. Of course it’s grim, but because it comes from the repressive ecosystem that targets Harper, it cuts deeper.
Lust Hag plays into the idea that if you wouldn’t mince words, why would you mince music? There’s no pretension that this black metal is any more esoteric than it is perverse. It remembers that a sick riff is a sick riff, regardless of whether the context is Darkthrone’s meat and potatoes or the enveloping atmosphere Emperor cultivates on “Cosmic Keys to My Creations & Times.” More often than not, Harper upholds the former example, her compositions staying within that primordial realm. It’s why “Ravenous Feast,” which is about literally chewing on and consuming the rich, can devolve into caveman death metal. At multiple points, Irrevocably Drubbed plays like black metal as equally attached to testing the boundaries of taste as it is to Motorhead’s formula; all gas, no class.
Label: Self-released
Year: 2025
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