If the first thing you'd said to me about LOBOTOMY DEPT was that it was a Rogga Johansson project, I'd not have bothered checking it out at all, given the fact that the dude has absolutely zero quality control and shits out a new record seemingly every other week. However, "New World Coma" is some solid and HARD industrial thrash that's clearly very heavily influenced by greats of years past like NAILBOMB, GODFLESH's straight-forward elements, PITCHSHIFTER when they were serious business instead of klowny, and late '80s/early '90s death/thrash ala SEPULTURA.
The production can't be faulted - cold, bright drum machine tones fit perfectly under the razor sharp and ultra-crunchy guitars. It's all pretty familiar and to be honest, nothing new at all - distorted shouts/rasps and palm-muted thrash riffs with some dissonant chords and bleak lead melodies, the odd sample - but this is no real criticism from me as it's all very well-executed; despite Johansson's penchant for obsessively churning out mostly unremarkable varieties of death metal, it's clear that he is a big fan of the aforementioned bands, which translates into the writing for LOBOTOMY DEPT. Also, it's just not that often that you hear something so authentic-sounding past the '90s, since the style has not had a huge revival like death metal and thrash did. Admittedly, I'm a real sucker for a lot of clinical, mechanized, stainless-steel industrial metal of the early-mid '90s and so maybe my judgement is a little off (like those sad old guys that own every Swedeath record ever), but 20 minutes wasn't enough - the record feels like it's the first half of a full length, which I wish it was! I hope this lone EP isn't all that we get from LOBOTOMY DEPT. Decent in every aspect and worth grabbing on CD.
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