Lotus - Ouroboros II: One Life, One Weight (Reprise) (Guest Review By Dirk Ceustermans)

   

  My favourite Belgian, Dirk Ceustermans, returns with a review...

  LOTUS - FOREVER MARTIAL 12" (Shield Recordings, SLD163)

  https://lotusbelgium.bandcamp.com/track/ouroboros-ii-one-life-one-weight-3

  Coming back into the picture with a 12" are LOTUS a band that always ranked high in my Belgian list of great bands. They play hardcore but with a different approach than the majority of other bands here in Belgium. Their style is defined by spartanic power riffing and a pounding rhythm section that alternates tempos. Blended with passionate vocals that scream out the parlando manifestos of each song added to this cocktail of angry short assaults.

  For sure a style that I can devour with delight. Ever since their first release "ISRAEL", they've left an impression on me, and again on this 13 odd minute 10 track release, they managed to do so again.

  Last weekend I went to see their release show, I was looking forward to it as it had become a bit quiet around Lotus (or was it me not paying attention?). So taking the opportunity to get me a copy of this 12" and now listening it for a few times, it is yet again a production so solid that could crush your little ear cells. 

  I picked out the song in which they tried out a bit of different approach through adding reverb on the vocals, it adds value to "Ouroboros II: One Life".

I didn’t walk out on a town that just wouldn’t burn when I was on fire

Into the fever of the city to get a little more nowhere
The days crawl by and for some sick little reason
The nights make me feel even less alive

The routine moon, the aisling sun
The mechanical grind, the perpetual drudge
And all my rage, the rage of stone
It’s weighing me down with savage disgust

And it’s dragging me back under again

The routine is coming in heads over tails
Teeth into scales
And it’s biting down hard again

Whenever I’m light on my wings
The pendulum always swings
And I come down hard again

The moon shines cold on my head full of lead
And I don’t feel like I’ve come out of my twenties alive
Each passing day, I grow unwell in a new way
And time keeps eating away at the good stuff

The worst always turns to worse, I’ve been dealing in hurt
Like a memorial of youth idly biding its time
But “our life is a journey through winter and night
We look for our way in a sky without light”*


*Words humbly borrowed from ‘Song of the Swiss Guards, 1793’ as referenced by Louis-Ferdinand Céline in ‘Voyage au bout de la nuit