Earlier this month, elder emo hearts fluttered into orbit (or descended into hell, depending on preference) at the announcement of When We Were Young festival’s next edition. Save for only Fall Out Boy, every 00s post-hardcore hero is performing a scenester spotlight album in full, from Homesick to Mothership to The Black Parade. The Saosin Bug Album? Yes please. There’s a tangible enduring nostalgia for the pre-Myspace emo era, when alt-rock outcasts somehow slotted snugly into mainstream chart success, and flashy neon Punk Goes Crunk nonsense, Tumblr-era pizza pop punk and crabcore was not only acceptable, but cool. It’s a time I look back on fondly while scratching my head.
LiL Lotus knows this, a diehard proponent of those halcyon days. As vocalist of screamo revivalists If I Die First who, alongside the wonderful SeeYouSpaceCowboy…, helped crash the style into the present day, the further popularity of MGK and emo cloud rap seeps into his own side project. He wears his influences on his sleeve, enlisting producers Matt Malpass and Mike Pepe (having worked with blink-182 and Taking Back Sunday respectively) to implement the sort of emo Easter eggs genre fanatics will politely nod their head to. But it’s fuelled by his candid reflections around addiction (note the pill box instruction on Nosebleeder’s cover) and three-minute snapshots of relationships in disarray, moments of realistic reflection we all get on some level.
Lotus is a crafter of bellowing hooks and biting remarks that balance love and abhorrence in the same sentence. On his second record through Epitaph, the title track’s tale of drug-addled sadness—“Nosebleeder, I taste the cocaine on your tongue / you hearteater, you’re always living off a bump”—is only surpassed in tragedy by it’s closing self-directed view, “Like me, just like me, and I hate that about you”. The ironic title of what a time to be alive makes its portrayal of medicated states all the more melancholy, alongside the vivid imagery of “sending signals through broken glass / precious moments are all I have”. By telling autobiographical troubles, the continual nosebleed of growing, Lotus’ lyrics punch hard when they need to while sounding strangely light in presentation.
More humorously, the 100 gecs-style glitchy punk-rap of millionaire details the persona’s desire to earn dollars at the expense of receiving money for every lie they’ve been told. Double entendres link sexual relationships with Twilight-inspired narratives on she’s a vampire: “why do I only see you at night?” is pretty darn funny considering she’s at a coven, as well as the vampiric slant on a relationship going nowhere: “I guess we’re stuck like this forever”. One of the aforementioned tracks even evokes FOB’s Dance, Dance drum motif.
The drums themselves represent the album’s foibles and wins. Taking MOD SUN-featuring opener blame me for everything, the pristine overproduction makes its kit sound purely programmed, with the guitars facing the same treatment. Instead, the moments of live instrumentation dazzle to accentuate Lotus’s consistently great vocal work and features from sace6, Alexis Munroe and kennedyxoxo. what a time to be alive’s drums were written by Travis Barker and tracked by YouTube-star-turned-The-Word-Alive-member Luke Holland, featuring his signature nifty double-kick style. i like you better as a ghost is close to pop-punk perfection in a mere couple of minutes. halley’s comet’s dancy crunkcore start transforms into a balladic flourish. shooting star’s meaty guitars match Lotus’ screamy singing style which also flies on play dead, and notably mimics both Spencer Chamberlain and Aaron Gillespie in tandem on how’s it feel to feel nothing? like a long lost relic from They’re Only Chasing Safety. Knuckle Puck’s guitarist Nick Casasanto performs and co-writes many of the best cuts, in fact.
Besides the occasion over indulgence on studio gloss, and some by-the-numbers tracks dwelling on the unrequited love storyline, there’s no escaping Lotus’ tight and engaging melodies. Even the tracks that could’ve been cut are a clear flex of his catchy-crafting nous which, if you’re of the ilk that replay your iPod library of Chiodos, Cobra Starship and Senses Fail, there’s an unreal amount of excellent emo-worship going on here. Lotus is unlucky that music’s macro-culture has disappeared since the 2010s, as his calibre as an alternative songwriter is accessible, honest and expertly performed. But as a fan himself, bringing the sound back for new audiences to admire the glorious scene times of old is still very much welcome.
For fans of: lil aaron, If I Die First, Lil Peep
‘Nosebleeder’ by LiL Lotus is released on 1st December on Epitaph Records.
Words by Elliot Burr
