Little do people know (or care to) that, beside this Singapore lot, there are two other bands with a similar name: a melodic hardcore Lifelock from Turkey and some sort of depressive and dark Bathory-Cimex metal-punk act Lifelöck from Brazil (with a tape called A Non Nuclear Nightmare which is an odd title for an evil band since it is officially the best sort of nightmare). As far as I know, none of these three bands have been sued by Doom for the use of the name of one of their top songs which is a relief (I swear this will be the only crust-related dad joke of the review). What would we become without Discogs? You can't escape record porn.
I don't suppose the Istambulis were thinking about Doom (and after all the phrase "life lock" is meaningful without being tied to a preexisting reference), the Brazilians must certainly have and the Singaporeans just did without hesitation, naturally, like a stud flying instinctively toward a punk leather jacket. Still, even though the nod to Doom must be factored in, Life Lock cannot be defined as Doom-like. Of course, lovers of the Brummies will feel at home with Life Lock - after all both share a common love for things of the D - but their respective program diverge. This review is not meant to explore the roots of Doom, that'd be an ambitious endeavour as we often tend to overlook where the legendary band's music originates from since they are more often seen as influencer rather than influencee. But let's just throw here that they initially intended to work on the gruffest side of 80's Swedish hardcore (Svart Parad, Asocial and all). Life Lock do not although they, rather cheekily, used Doom's cloud logo as the cover of the first version of the present Ep, a self-released tape (to be fair Abraham Cross played the same trick in the 90's). Life Lock have always been pretty clear about their main sources of joy: Disaster and Disclose.
Such a masterplan is straight-forward enough but it does require a songwriting flair for the simple but perfect riffs, vocal pattern, distortion level and primitive drum beat, things that Life Lock clearly demonstrates. They remain faithful to the source material with a "wall of noise not music" vibe expressed through blatant but always loving Disaster and Disclose rip-offs. Even more accurate perhaps would be the theory that Life Lock is the answer to the question "What if Disclose had been a radical Disaster-worship act?". This is an existential interrogation, the kind of which often arises after a collective boozing session at 2am. Definitely after the gig. Even if your hearing and eyesight are not what they used to be, the Ep is replete with Disaster references. Life Lock cover "Devastation" (sample included), use the Disaster font to write their own name, the first song "Our glorious(?) dead" directly refers to Disaster's "Glorious?", "Hell's inferno" to the line "Hellish inferno" in Disaster's "Inferno". Being fair play, Life Lock do indicate "Thanks to Disaster" on the backcover and the song "Grows in fear" is more akin to a blissfully obvious Disclose tribute. Who said d-beat was a one-trick pony?
This marvelous Ep was recorded in 2018 and released on Brain Solvent Propaganda and Symphony of Destruction. I haven't been able to get an idea of how active the band was or maybe still is. They did release a handful of tape, among which the quite manifest and rhetorical Who'll Make Noise Not Music?!! in 2010 (with a recreation of Discharge's iconic first Ep but with "Disaster" painted at the bottom of a studded jacket, in case you needed to be reminded of where they were heading toward) and And For What (you know what they mean, yeah?) with an even nerdier cover using the very same picture of the two armed soldiers as Disaster used, except these soldiers, instead of the perfectly acceptable gasmask faces, now have the cabbage heads of Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing. What a combo.
The Singapore scene has proven to a new wider audience to be very dynamic and lively for the past 10 years with bands like Siäl and Lubricant being quite successful abroad and needless to say that punk 2.0 certainly contributed to that well-deserved interest. However, one must not forget that Singapore punks have been playing noisy crust and d-beat (and more generally hardcore) for a long time as solid bands like Minus, Blinded Humanity or Pazahora (members of which play in the aformentioned Siäl) can attest. For those ready to nerd out, I recommend giving a listen to the Singapore Punk Holocaust compilation cd released sometime in the 00's.
But in the meantime blast some Life Lock, arguably the Disclosest band to Disaster.
