Lurid Panacea are a long distance brutal death grind duo. United by a common interest in creating and spreading repulsive, damaging “music,” despite living at opposite ends of the world from each other, Lurid Panacea’s two halves were already good friends before forming their latest band together.
Drummer Isaac Horne is a Canadian currently living in Dayton, Ohio. Isaac’s been drumming for Cleveland-based stalwarts Hemdale since 2016. He, along with two other Ohio grinders, also formed the exceptionally brutal Sulfuric Cavity in 2015. Now, last year Sulfuric Cavity split one fucked up heavy 7” with Incinerated, one of Adrian Cappelletti’s bands.
Adrian lives in Melbourne. No doubt this dude’s a major part of how Melbourne’s become such a hotbed for killer grind over the past few years. Between his work with the Moritician-fluenced Incinerated and brutalizers Rawhead, not to mention his numerous other deadly projects, Adrian’s kept a lot of grindfiends, far and wide, very happy over the past couple of years.
And one of those fiends just so happened to be Isaac Horne.
“I was jamming the first Incinerated album Avenged tons, like to the point Bandcamp cut me off and said I had to pay for the digital album,” Isaac says. “Adrian had ordered some Sulfuric Cautery stuff off me and I included a note in the package asking ‘Are you the same Adrian from Australia that does Incinerated?! If so we should do a split!!’ We got in contact digitally after that and worked everything out for the split over the next few months and have been allies in brutality ever since.”
Isaac obliquely brings up that he also played with Rawhead on their recent US mini-tour. Except he did vocals, as Adrian is the drummer for Rawhead.
Isaac adds: “When we were hanging out on the Rawhead American mini tour the idea of starting a long distance project came up because we reckoned we could probably do some pretty crazy stuff together.”
Regarding the fact that he did vocals instead drummer, Isaac points out: “Doing vocals was way more fun anyways. What instrument do you perform better while super drunk?! Not drums in a goregrind band that’s for sure.”
“I’d known of Isaac for a few years being way into all the grind he was releasing/drumming on before we ever met personally,” says Adrian. “We only got the chance to meet in May this year when Rawhead came up to the States for a few shows, and well to put it blatantly, have ya heard his blast beat? That’s what made me want to start a band going!”
And what a band theirs turned out to be. Self-described as “BRUTAL DEATH METAL PLAYED WITH AN ESPECIALLY GRINDING EDGE, HYPERBLASTING, CONSTANT CHANGES, RIFF CITY, FOR FANS OF FOETOPSY, BRODEQUIN, ENCENETHRAKH”—and here’s a band that actually live up to all that up.
Lurid Panacea’s demo relents only in-between tracks. And even then but briefly. Caught between Adrian’s fretboard freak outs and Isaac’s cruel inhumanity behind the drum kit, there’s really no safe place to keep your thoughts while getting battered by these nine tracks. No matter where you run, that snare will find you. And it’s all so incredibly tight. As if Isaac and Adrian have jammed together for years.
So, how did they go about creating the thing?
Adrian breaks down their process: “Isaac records the drums in his basement, it’s all completely improvised. Then he sends them over to me, where I write riffs over the top of it. It’s pretty cool how seamless everything comes about. No clicks involved. We’re having fun!”
Isaac says a demo of this ilk must be “as violent, seething, and vile as possible.” Additionally: “Fuck melodies in grind forever.”
As for their evocative yet relatively harmless name, Isaac says it’s all about that “cryptic duality;” the name Lurid Panacea asks “the eternal ‘does the end justify the means?’ question.”
Lurid Panacea’s demo showed up on Bandcamp back in July. The CDs, released by Blast Addict, in a stately, minimalist digisleeve, came out just twenty days ago. A few copies still remain at Blast Addict. Night Rhythms Records—who’ve already worked with Incinerated, for the LP version of last year’s too-aptly-titled Lobotomise—will release Lurid Panacea’s demo on cassette in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Lurid Panacea grind on.
“We have a split 7” coming out pretty soon with Beasters (Philadelphia/New York) which we just finished up the recordings for,” says Adrian. “That stuff will go up on our Bandcamp page within the next couple days I’d say. After that, we’re gonna do a full length that should be all recorded for in the next couple months most likely.”
That’s what’s great about grind bands. There’s seldom a dearth of material. But now you can say you were a fan since the demo.
