(c) Your LOGOS
Good things take time. LUGOS released a first demo in 2016 and then played mainly in and around Paris, including with The Armed, Frontierer and Sick Of It All. However, it would take a long time for the quintet to make new recordings. Now a first album is lurking somewhere between hardcore punk, metallic chaos and mathcore. Between raging anger and destructive sadness spreads „Inconsolable“ the end.
The opening “PIGS” can only be written in capital letters, this prelude is so heavy and broken. LUGOSi like it audibly unwieldy, combining hoarse vocals with weird rhythms that trip themselves up and at the same time leave room for smaller, ominous insertions whose menace is discharged in a roundregarding way. On the other hand, “Holy Daze” goes straight to the front, at least initially, and evokes memories of Converge and Zao, among others. Complex anger collides with the Metalcore primordial soup, where intricate mayhem was even more important than anthemic choruses.
At the other end of this record lurks the overly long “Maskenfreiheit”, which in its semi-melodic sluggishness takes on almost doomy features and yet goes crazy in slow motion. Short, pointed explosions get under your skin. The two-part “The Naked King” gets the maximum out of LUGOSi’s madness. While the first section delivers math core of the particularly demanding kind and in places even reminds you of the joint EP by The Dillinger Escape Plan and Mike Patton, part 2 is much more frontal for long stretches, still odd, but overall almost sublime in the complete Escalation.
All in all, the first half of the album turns out to be much odder and more complex, while in the second part LUGOSi increasingly focus on the hardcore punk aspect, accompanied by fine melodic hints. Nevertheless, “Inconsolable” proves to be a wild, demanding and pleasantly rough record with many hidden treasures, which of course hits a familiar notch, but at the same time treads foaming new paths with technical standards and a heart for madness. In this form, LUGOSi are welcome to venture out of the Parisian countryside and also work on local stages.
Rating: 8/10
Available from: 18.11.2022
Available through: POGO Records / Out Of Thunes Records
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LUGOSIrocks
Category: Magazin, Reviews
