SINGLE Review â LĂłtus â Reia Cibele (2024)
I was sitting quietly on my couch scrolling through my Intagram stories when I came across a poster for a concert taking place on April 6 and 7 in Lisbon (Disgraça) and Ovar (Buraco Pub) in Portugal - with reference to the spanish post-harcore band FOSCĂ and, for the first time in the history of portuguese cultural heritage, a band called Reia Cibele, subtitled as Screamo from Lisbon. Finally we have the scramz word in Portugal?! As a Lisbon native and fan of the scramz community, I rushed to see if they had published something. This single LĂłtus came out on March 27 and I didn't even know anything about itâŠ
The heavy music scene in Lisbon is dominated by noise, crust and prog punk, classic hardcore and, more recently, strange and mesmerizing stuff by bands like Hetta, Linger and clericviolence, always with many musical references to power and emo violence, beatdown hardcore and punk, but with new ideas and textures. I think that when I heard Reia Cibele and their single LĂłtus I felt a big contrast to the "screamo" I usually listen to. It's much more violent than that, very attached to the roots and habits of the city. Portuguese people don't follow the rules of tonality, they don't like beautiful and predictable melodies or things with obvious emotional references. That's why I loved it. I can perfectly fit screamo and its new life in there. It makes perfect sense and I'll let you know why.
The drums and vocals are completely loyal to the subgenre and the guitar and bass play very well with distortions and other textures typical of the above genres, as well as with tones that aren't well defined. In fact, I can't even tell what key the song is and this isn't a very common thing in screamo. The unleashing is very satisfying and it's very difficult to describe what's happening there. A total chaos. The experimentalism is evident and it's a very positive aspect for the cultural growth of the portuguese music scene as well as scramz itself. Thereâs guaranteed suffering, a lot of people envolved in the pit and not much to dance about.
In short, I highly recommend people to listen to this single, and moreover this band and what it has to offer. The supposed cover of the album is itself ambiguous (illustration by @estripadores.malditos), with shapes that, although they seem obvious, you can't really understand what's there and that comes down to the music itself. Paradoxically, the lotus flower is a flower that represents rebirth and the purity of starting a new life, as is the case with Reia Cibele - I see them introducing skramz to the territory in a big way and influencing a lot of young people to play and make good music, as the concerts seem to be full.
What is truly spectacular about this type of music is that we can embrace various sounds and not deprive ourselves of the freedom of harmonic/rhythmic expression, without giving anything aesthetic continuity, but opening the door to new sub-cultures, introducing our own.
«my life is in your hands. free, i suffocate myself. a flower without a scent grows without a root. in a fragile soil, watered by the ego. history repeats itself. the fruit of a desire embraces the spines, this seed dies alone. in the shadows. it inherits a dream, almost impossible. it embodies a will that it cannot fulfill. it feeds on lack, it sustains itself with leftovers. it loses itself in its spirit. it lives alone, without warmth. without a stem, it flies with the wind. it grows, without a root. i will forever be a stranger to my gaze».
-Reia Cibele (traduced to eng.)
















