Live Review: Lucifer at The Boston Music Room, London (13/10/18)

Following their second album release, Lucifer II in July 2018 the Stockholm, Sweden based occult rock/doom band have brought their unique sound to the UK for a one-off show in London.

Lucifer are inspired by the likes of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Blue Öyster Cult, Fleetwood Mac as well as many other hard rock/doom bands. They originally formed in Berlin back in 2014 and consist of enigmatic frontwoman Johanna Sadonis, guitarist Robin Tidebrink, and multi-instrumentalist Nicke Andersson, who plays drums. In 2016, Johanna moved from Berlin to Stockholm and the current incarnation of Lucifer was complete.

Tonight the location is the Boston Music Room in Tufnell Park, a small club like venue that holds about 250 people. While hardly heaving inside, it’s busy enough for the prompt arrival (9pm) of the band to be greeted by roars of approval and many a devil horn thrown.

It’s a brief showing lasting just over an hour but the band manages to jam in quite a few tracks, including a lengthy encore. It feels far too short but that is no bad thing as it means they’ve done their job of keeping you interested and engaged.

The stage doesn’t seem big enough for the five-piece (2 extra live musicians taking up bass and guitar duties) but all eyes are drawn towards, Johanna Sadonis. She is energetic, sings with demonic forcefulness and when she cracks out the tambourine it all feels delightfully old-school.

Talking of old-school, the band do look like they’ve time-travelled from the seventies with their outfits, big hair and in one case, Sabbath-style moustache.

Lucifer make up for the lack of show (they have a backdrop) by powering through some of their best work heavily weighted towards the second album. Again, this is no bad thing as it’s the stronger of the two albums and Reaper on Your Heels is the highlight.

Not one for chatter but that could be put down to the short stage time; Johana keeps any crowd interaction brief which fits the occultist tone. Only briefly does the quality dip forcing the mind to wander and this comes during Dreamer, a fairly innocuous number. It’s the only low moment though as for 60-odd minutes Lucifer light up the Boston Music Room and London can be grateful for their brief jaunt over.

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