lojia - opus one

Lojia

Opus One
self-released; 2013

3.5 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

Lojia is a three-piece band from Portland, Oregon consisting of JD Horvath (guitar), Matt Bosak (bass, vocals, production) and Grant Lewistags (drums) who on their album Opus One create music that has jam-band type tendencies (somewhere between Phish and Primus) with indie rock and a tinge of metal. 

The band produced, recorded, mixed and mastered their own material. They did a decent job with everything but it’s still pretty obvious from the recording that it is very much a DIY effort. I think the touch of a professional engineer would have benefited the quality of the recordings. That being said the songs are well written and shine through despite lo-fi aesthetics, which adversely affect the impact of the songs. 


The album starts with “The Agenda,” which is a bass heavy song somewhere in between Primus and Rage against The Machine.  I would have loved to hear the vocals in bit more; they were a bit buried in the mix. “Paraphrase” takes the Les Claypool style bass work as well as sporadic moments of a curdling Death Metal type scream that combine to make a genre-bending piece that has a personality disorder. “Plastic Surgery” takes distorted bass notes to give the song more energy while “Easy Answers” is the most emotionally resonant song that derives from melancholy. 

Lojia is a solid band of technically proficient musicians who have chemistry but still have much room for improvement. I also can't help but think these guys rock live and some of the energy got lost in the translation.

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