Artist: The Lost Poets
CD: Insubordia
Release date: May 30, 2014
Album review by: Phil Kim
Production: Alex Holmberg MFG Studios and The Lost Poets
Not to be mistaken for the disbanded and recently reunited UK post-hardcore band Lostprophets, The Lost Poets bring us their brand of metal from the Swedish capital. And they are not a quartet (or trio, now that Watkins has began his sentence and the band will have nothing to do with him); they are a vocalist/guitarist-bassist/drummer tag team with two men doing the work of four. The Lost Poets are a household name in their native Stockholm and there’s nary a venue worthy of mention there they haven’t played in. But Petter Ossian Stromberg and David Rosengren have their eyes set on bigger things than Debaser, Berns and O-Baren (the Bluebird cafes of Sweden). They want to bring their dark, matured twist of alternative metal to the world with their debut EP.
Insubordia is the culmination of the first two years of The Lost Poets’ existence, and boy, what a culmination it is! Few projects can sound so rugged and refined. No five tracks have been so gloriously put together by a band purportedly making their baby steps onto the bloated rock scene. You will want to make space in your CD shelf for the Lost Poets ‘coz seriously, these guys are onto something, a really good thing. And when you get a hit of this 17-minute high, you will develop a lifelong craving for The Lost Poets.
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‘Ode to K’ is the first offering from the Poets’ EP, tumbling into your ear with wiry twangs and crisp, rousing drums which carry a confession by Rosengren that he’s dying inside. This song, which he admits “just came out of nowhere…” tells the tale of someone who sold his soul to the devil, and now looks back longingly at happier times. More than anything, the lethargic inflections of David’s raspy tenor put you in the mood to empathize with the desperate soul. Next is the equally moody ‘Lying Down’ whose hard-driven guitars, and Petter’s efforts on the skins, fail to mask the looming shadows slowly spreading across the soundscape. The bleak imagery of Rosengren’s compositions combine with waning strings to put a heaviness in your chest you won’t want to be rid of.
The Lost Poets – Ode to K
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‘Die to Live’ is the longest of the five cuts and is more a composite of two songs that weave in and out of each other. A ponderous, angry metal exhortation and a drumless acoustic ballad suppress and are subdued by each other in a beautifully controlled rhythm. There is a bluesy feel to ‘Insubordia’ rendered by banjo-like guitars and Stromberg’s emphatic stomps on the kick drum. You can almost see the blade of grass hanging between David’s lips as he lazily warns “Careful what you wish for…” The title track gives way to the one minute outro ‘Inside the Cage’ which sums up the project with a mystic air, leaving you dry-throated with longing for the full album.
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