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Band: Lotus Feed
Album title: So Close ...So Far
Release date: 1 February 2013
Label: AF-music
Tracklisting:
01. Drift
02. I Could
03. Seasick
04. Loveshock
05. Home Of The Watchmen
06. Grow In Use
07. Tranquility
08. Upon A Hill
09. Slow Motion
10. Wake Up
11. Chance
12. Perception
13. Second Skin
I am about to be completely honest with you here and admit I haven't heard anything about this band when I encountered So Close ...So Far. Nor have I heard any of their previous releases. But that doesn't matter at all, because So Close ...So Far was such a little, pleasant surprise for me.
I immediately got drawn to this album because of its opening track: "Drift" is such a great, post-punk instrumental piece, it is gloomy and distressful and so is the rest of the album. In its core it reminds me of what Siouxsie And The Banshees was doing back in the golden days of post punk – the dark, twisted, wicked and harmonic embodiment of keyboard driven punk vibes. So from this point of view, So Close ...So Far is a really solid release. Especially songs like "Home Of The Watchmen", "Seasick" and "Upon A Hill" really hit the spot. Sometimes it even delivers a bit of Joy Division here and maybe a bit of Sisters there, so it's fairly obvious where Lotus Feed get their inspiration from. Putting aside the music itself, I can’t over go the fact that the production here is the weakest point of this album. I know back in the days everything related to the term "punk" that was caught on tape ought to sound incredibly bad, with a lot of disturbance in the sound, the vocalist had to shout out loud to get a glimpse of his vehement words down and the more it sounded cheap, the better it was. But in the 2010s that's just not the deal anymore. And this is where So Close ...So Far reveals its true dark side – bad production, bad sound and somehow, for this chosen genre, quite weak vocals. If you recall the names of Siouxise Sioux or Ian Curtis for example, they were both extraordinary and extremely charismatic vocalists, and the gloomy post punk music needs that. It's an essential part to deliver the cherry on the top with the disturbed vocals, and unfortunately, Lotus Feed fail here as well.
It is incredibly great to hear that even nowadays there are still bands out there staying devoted to a genre that some consider long lost and gone and that pop punk is not the only something plus punk variation that is still alive. All in all, So Close ...So Far is a great album, diverse, joyless in its atmosphere and consistent in its structure. But it would shine so much more if the production enabled it.
Review written by: Ines
Rating: 6,5/10
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