Yes, that is real blood...
"Is it cold in here?"
"Or is it just me?"
— "Shallow", off of Konkurs
There are bands who built themselves with shock value, and then there's Lifelover. One of the most infamous acts that inspired the Depressive Suicidal Black Metal movement (DSBM), Lifelover started in 2005 by Swedish musicians Kim "( )" Carlsson and Jonas "B" Bergqvist. The band's lyrical themes mainly surround itself through drugs, Black Comedy, misery, depression, hatred, and overall cynicism, all while mixing together different styles of music, resulting with many albums sounding different.
Performances were infamous for being bloody with Kim bleeding on stage, whether for shock value or for the real intent of the music.
After seven years of being together, the band broke up in 2011 following [the death of B from an accidental prescription drug overdose. The band had no intention to reuniting for the sake of B's memory and even decided to create another band with the same members.
Members
- Jonas "B" Bergqvist - guitars, piano, speech, vocals (2005 - 2011) (deceased)
- Kim "( )" Carlsson - lead vocals (2005 - 2011)
- Henrik "H." Huldtgren - rhythm guitars (2006 - 2011)
- Richard "LR" Öström - additional speech, vocals (2006 - 2011)
- Johan "1853" Gabrielson - additional vocals (2006 - 2011)
- "Fix" - Bass (2007 - 2011)
Discography
- 2005 - Promo 2005 [Demo]
- 2006 - Pulver note
- 2007 - Erotik note
- 2008 - Konkurs note
- 2008 - Dekadens[EP] note
- 2011 - Sjukdom note
Mental Troper Dialog...
- The Band Minus the Face: Kim and the remaining members of Lifelover formed another project named Kall, which is less focused on black comedy and more emphasis on drugs, mental health, and depression.
- Bilingual Bonus: Majority of their lyrics are in Swedish.
- Black Metal: Core genre, although they experimented here and there with their albums.
- Breather Episode: Sometimes there are some songs that can be very relaxing. Examples are "Stängt p.g.a semester" from Konkurs and "Humörets bottenvåning" from Erotik.
- Brown Note: Performances consisted of a bleeding Kim Carlsson as he sang. This trope is averted at times since some fans don't find this a problem and continued to watch the band perform!
- Careful with That Axe: At times Kim can do this. Example
. - Drugs Are Bad: Averted. The band wrote lyrics about drugs and such, although unlike another band, they've never been seeing doing drugs on stage other than drinking.
- Cover Drop: Somewhat with the song "Välkommen till Pulvercity", which stands for "Welcome to Powder City", which could be a reference to the Erotik cover.
- Darker and Edgier: Konkurs is much more darker than Erotik and Pulver, putting more emphasis on depression and cynicism.
- Downer Ending: At the height of the band's career with their fourth album, B passed away. The band then folded after that.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The Promo 2005 demo is this, for one thing, there's a huge length to the two songs and are just guitar experimentation. It isn't until Pulver that they developed their style.
- Fan Disservice: The cover of Pulver consist of a naked woman covered in blood. There's a good reason why the cover isn't shown.
- Kim on stage is shirtless but covered in blood.
- Genre Mashup: Every album had some type of experimental to sound different, resulting with an insane amount of Genre Roulette.
- Genre Roulette: All over the fucking map. Despite being Black Metal, they were famous for mixing different genres together like Post-Punk, Dark ambient, depressive rock, and even pop music.
- Irony: The band's name is called "Lifelover", but yet all the lyrics are depressing.
- Limited Lyrics Song: Mental Central Dialog consists of "Jag finner inga svar. Finns det några svar?" being repeated before an increasingly anguished "Jag finner inga svar. Det finns inga svar!"
- Lyrical Dissonance: Majority of their songs are upbeat and experimental...but the lyrical themes are pretty disturbing and overall depressing. Example is "M/S Salmonella" from Pulver, which sounds pretty happy..but the lyrics are about a man killing himself and sending a postcard to someone saying he's done the deed.
- Madness Mantra: ''Jag finner inga svar. Finns det några svar?/Jag finner inga svar, Finns det några svar?/Jag finner inga svar, Det finns inga svar! note
- New Sound Album: Every single album. As stated above, the band experimented so much that each album sounds different.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: B's death is what caused the band to break up, as they couldn't continue without him.
- Sampling: There will be some sampling here and there, from sources from Swedish media. As for spoken words, Kim would usually speak through some parts of a song, or overall speak in general. Big example is in "Expandera" from Sjukdom where he consist of just reciting a poem, at least until the end.
- Sanity Slippage Song: "Mental central dialog".
- Soprano and Gravel: Kim's voice will consist of normal speaking and then jumping into deafening screams.
- Surprisingly Gentle Song: There will be some here in and there.
- Take That!: The song "Major Fuck Off".
- Trope Codifier: For DSBM to say the least.
- Vocal Tag Team: In a confusing way. Kim was lead vocals while B, 1853 and LR were additional, but the music is all over the map it's hard to pin point who's who.
