VERA O'FLERA

LOTUS were a Jazz band out of Sweden who released two studio albums in the mid seventies. I reviewed the debut back in 2009 and was quite impressed at the time and I also spun it about a year and half ago confirming that it's still a 4 star album in my universe. "Vera O'Flera" is album number two from 1976 and it sounds different from the debut. They've dropped from a five piece to a four piece with the second guitarist leaving. There's also a new bassist and drummer. No organ this time around which is huge to the sound as the keyboardist sticks to synths and piano. We do get some guest sax on just one track I believe.

I'm in the opinion that this one pales in comparison to the debut. The synths are very annoying and prominent but I do like the electric piano. We get vocals on one track and it's less than a minute long in this traditional sounding "ahem" song. There's not one song that I like all the way through but there certainly many, many good passages where the guitar or electric piano solo over top mostly. Sax on that fourth tune which is light and jazzy. No thankyou. The second and third tracks have a lot of energy and the latter has a bass solo in it.

Pretty much every song has synths going off like there's a fire somewhere but if your into that kind of thing along with high energy fusion you might want to check this out.