We study the isoscalar and isovector $J=0,1$ mesons with the overlap operator within two flavour lattice QCD. After subtraction of the lowest-lying Dirac eigenmodes from the valence quark propagator all disconnected contributions vanish and all possi
ble point-to-point $J=0$ correlators become identical, signaling a simultaneous restoration of both $SU(2)_L times SU(2)_R$ and $U(1)_A$ symmetries. The ground states of the $pi,sigma,a_0,eta$ mesons do not survive this truncation. All possible $J=1$ states have a very clean exponential decay and become degenerate, demonstrating a $SU(4)$ symmetry of a dynamical QCD-like string.
