Score 7/10

I only recently found out that there’s a hidden catch to every tiny little pleasure in life.  It all started this summer when my dire need of listening to music and the temperature outside became inversely proportional, thus everything sounded bad even before I started listening to it. But too much is never enough, so Lorus’ Deluge album was a rational and almost natural addition to my playlist.

“Evocation” and “Hut Hut Hut” will strike the listener with forceful drums, heavy guitars, powerful bass lines, and uplifting keyboards. The occasional fits of piano work perfectly as jazz souvenirs, despite the fact that both this track and “PGD” bear an Oriental-ish sound that actually melds rather well with the whole happy go-lucky vibe the band has generated. Lorus somehow manage to maintain that sensation that songs could actually go on forever without turning into boring, relentless music. But obviously, they do stop, and by the time they do, the audience is so drawn in that more is mandatory.

Deluge benefits from an almost narrative ambience and it employs the first seven tracks to introduce “Parasitic Twin,” an epic immix of genres and influences. Just like in all the previous songs, the quirky keyboards here tamper with heaviness and loud bass tunes, interfering with your toughts of “Maynard’s voice is so going to pop up now.” Cheery as they may be, the patterns here are bound to rub the listener the wrong way and raise a couple of mixed feelings about the overall atmosphere.

Nevertheless, what we witness is Sleepytime Gorilla Museum meeting with King Crimson in a sludgy frequency, resulting in a spacey and dissonant piece of unconventional music. Prog-oriented, on the edge of avant-garde and experimental, Lorus’ debut is determined to make one crave for extra minutes. Encores are more then welcome.

~Diana Sitaru - The Silent Ballet.com
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