Heath Rave hadn’t released any music in five years when he started writing the material for Lovers in Wartime, his first album under the moniker Lotus Thrones. It was 2020, and the former drummer for Wolvhammer and Across Tundras was locked indoors like the rest of us, trying to stay sharp musically and creatively. The songs that started pouring forth didn’t have a ton in common with his sludgy former bands; Rave instead found himself pulling from the post-punk, goth and industrial music he grew up with. There’s a bit of a metal edge to the music on Lovers in Wartime, but it’s the same kind of metal edge that Killing Joke and Nine Inch Nails could sometimes have. It’s a killer album that pays homage to its reference points while finding ample space to push beyond them, and Rave doesn’t sound like someone who spent five years away from music.
Today, we’re premiering the first single from Lovers in Wartime, the icy social distancing anthem “Fatigue,” as well as its unsettling black-and-white video by Chariot of Black Moth. You can check out Heath Rave’s statement on “Fatigue” below.
“‘Fatigue’ was the first real song I wrote for this project. It was during my second 10-day quarantine due to direct exposure, and I was just as over it as all of us have been and could ever be. I was thinking about how we could hide behind the masks, the same way people hide behind their computers and their manufactured personas and can safely antagonize from afar without fear or consequence. At the same time, thinking of old, dangerous behaviors as rather dull compared the constant agony of being inside on top of the pain of venturing out into the world to do banal tasks and being disgusted if people would get too close. The video is meant to express that paranoia and heartache. If anything good can come from all of this, it would be people continuing keep their distance after all is said and done.”
Pre-order Lovers in Wartime, out July 30, here.
