Fresh stoner rock

Lurch: The spice of sound lies in the cuisine

Psychedelic stoner sounds with no desire for boundaries or pigeonholing: Lurch take off with their debut album.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Lurch, Lena Bell)

A fun project with serious motivation behind it - the psychedelic stoner rock duo Lurch have been shaking up the local live scene for some time, and now their debut album is on the way. The quartet revealed to the "Krone" what the band name is all about, why culinary delights play such an important role and why they don't fly to Birmingham to see Black Sabbath.

Lead-heavy riffs, droning guitars and a lot of delay and reverb in the sound - when the wall of sound booms thickly, then Lurch are not far away. The quartet came together in 2018 to indulge their shared passion for stoner rock and doom metal. As fans of the music, the four were not only regular guests at the "Roadtrip To Outer Space" series in the Vienna Arena, but also networked early on with local bands from the field. Incidentally, Lurch has nothing to do with the dust snake hiding in cracks in the floor. The band's name actually refers to the English verb "to lurch", but the phonetics of this has taken on a momentum of its own in these latitudes, which has long been noted with a grin.

Unplanned band line-up
Before Lurch recorded their eponymous debut album, they had long since made a name for themselves in Austria as an explosive live band. Gigs between Ottensheim, Linz and Vienna not only testified to the musicians' great passion, but also revealed their talent in songwriting. The fact that the band would ultimately become an all-female band in a rather male-based scene was not explicitly planned. "The last person to join us was our bassist Marie," says guitarist and mouthpiece Miriam in the "Krone" talk, "we realized during rehearsals that the sound wouldn't work without a bass. But it wasn't our main intention to have a woman on bass." The debut album has now become an all-female affair, even apart from the female musicians.

The album was mastered by the Swede Frida Claeson Johansson, the pretty artwork was created by Lena Bell and it was recorded by Sabina Schöberl, who has otherwise been on tour with Mother's Cake or The Vintage Caravan and even took a longer break for Lurch. More than a year and a half passed between the start of recording and the release of the album. "Sabina was our first choice. She didn't have time for a while for personal reasons, but we waited for her," says Miriam, "she's an extremely nice person and totally professional. We didn't want to advertise the fact that only women were working on the album, but at some point it got to the point where we wanted to do it ourselves." Although a lot has changed for the better in the heavier guitar scene (see Vulvarine, for example), there is still plenty of catching up to do when it comes to equality. "When I went to stoner concerts in 2010, there were mostly just the girlfriends of fans," Miriam remembers, "fortunately that has changed significantly today. There are more and more women in front of the stage who love the sound."

Hunger in the rehearsal room
The common pillar saints are already clearly recognizable in the first song. Doomy Black Sabbath-style riffs are paired with Queens Of The Stone Age-style groove passages, plus a lot of psychedelia and some classic heavy metal. Singer Pauline is only rarely in action. Although Lurch are not a purely instrumental band like Karma To Burn, they focus most of their energy on the sound rather than the vocals. The lyrics oscillate somewhere between youthful anarchy, dialect words and a fondness for culinary delights. For example, "Wauga" is Burgenland for "Nasenpetzi", "Shoota" is derived from the "Italian Weeks" at McDonald's (pastasciutta) and "Croque Madame" celebrates the French specialty toast with fried egg and béchamel sauce. "There's a lot of snacking in our rehearsal room," laughs the band in unison, "we used to name all our songs after Italian dishes." In the meantime, they have become more versatile.

Behind the innocuous song titles are six tracks that are not stingy with instrumental power and a preference for the 70s feeling. Lurch were allowed to record with the analog equipment of the Viennese band Pastor early on, which has clearly shaped the band's sound. "Apart from my Hofer guitar, we've never had bad material to play with. In the rehearsal room, we used their vintage tube amplifiers - an absolute dream." Professionally, the four thoroughbred musicians work in different areas. Miriam works in integrative adult education for women who do not speak German as their mother tongue. Bassist Marie works for an environmental NGO, front woman Pauline is a kindergarten teacher and drummer Eva works in the short film sector. Whenever they find the time, they get together in the rehearsal room to work on new songs and ideas. As the album is already old, at least for the band, they have already come a long way.

No Black Sabbath show
"We've worked out a ten-minute song that's sure to surprise a few people." The foundation should definitely remain the analog sound and a certain groove. "It doesn't necessarily have to be recorded in 5/4 time, followed by a weird change. We find it exciting to see where the journey takes us." They definitely want to record the next album live and together. "It has a completely different vibe. We feel more comfortable in this constellation than when we record the tracks separately." Speaking of Black Sabbath - Miriam has of course tried to get tickets for Ozzy Osbourne's farewell concert in Birmingham in July. "VIP tickets for 500 pounds would have been possible, but that was too decadent for me," she laughs, "there are limits somewhere."

Live in Austria
If you want to hear Black Sabbath-like sounds at a much cheaper and fresher price, you should visit one of the Lurch concerts. They can be seen with their debut album on March 28 at Schlosskeller Waidhofen an der Ybbs, on March 29 at Music House in Graz, on April 4 at Wiener Arena, on April 19 at Kapu in Linz, on May 17 at the city festival in Scheibbs and on July 4 at Roeda in Steyr. Further dates will follow.