Larva, floating Beauty's second album, opens with sparse patches of Viola and Cello that could support a narrative set in a cold and misty northern land ravaged by the black plague. The first track Larissa draws images of a lonely monastery in a barren landscape, dead trees and a lonely traveller in a dark cloak caught between the rocks.

 

Once again Lobo Panic has created not a pop album but something that's closer to classical music in the sense that individual tracks are pieces of the whole, slowly metamorphosing from one state to the next, maybe just like the larva that gave its name. The listener has to be alert for the subtle shifts in sound that herald a new part. In contrast to the previous album, Mára Alinea, Larva does not rely on shock tactics and radical shifts in dynamics to keep the listener engaged. There is a stronger sense of red thread, of continuity and déjà vu. The process itself seems to be more important, as brushstroke upon brushstroke paints a picture, until the canvas is filled and the next layer of paint begins to cover up what is below it.

 

The mood on this record is as desolate as a cold morning in early March with winter still present in the chilly air. Sadness seems to cling to every note. Once more it´s hard not to imagine the film to which this music could serve as the soundtrack. A quiet black and white crime story comes to mind, medieval drama or maybe even a subdued psychological horror film noir.

 

Something set in a remote mountain village, the urban wasteland of a post-soviet ghost town or a claustrophobic ghetto courtyard. Although this album is a drastic departure from floating Beauty's first release, it is just as compelling.

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