BLACK LOTUS set their focus on the build-up of a dense atmosphere. The music presents all speeds, ranging from borne over moderately hefty up to fast-as-an-arrow; thereby the different tempos alternate in fluent as well as felicitous manner. In the same way, the vocal performance of singer Jasper v.d. Veen shows up in variable style. His repertoire contains quite aggressive Black Metal screeching, heroic chants and a dark, voluminous timbre. In addition, the keyboards play an important role, whereby this instrument takes on the melody lead every now and then. For the bigger part, it acts in the background, but the musicians avoid all too kitschy melodies in the songs’ structure.

I can imagine that all listeners who like the staginess of older Vintersorg, Falkenbach or Dimmu Borgir releases, will also enjoy this work by BLACK LOTUS, because the down-to-earth production contributes a lot to the charming nostalgic effect, which is dispersed by Harvest Of Seasons. This release offers a nice combination of melody and pathos on the one hand; on the other, the band does not forget about aggressiveness and power. Sometimes the fast parts seem to be a little bit unstructured and the band’s program misses out an outstanding song, but this disadvantage can be eliminated with the next work.