Thursday, July 2, 2015

FIRST IMPRESSION: Wake Up Lucid - Gone With the Night


Burbling up from Silverlake, CA, Wake Up Lucid delivers a sharp, 30-minute rush through the past forty years of scuzz-rock on their latest ep, “Gone With the Night”.  Produced by the Icarus Line’s Joe Cardamone, the band shares a sensibility and sonic bloodline with Cardamone’s band…the guitars are in the red ala “Raw Power” and the band alternately rushes and lurches down musical back alleys that are redolent of their So Cal surroundings.  Ryan Baca’s voice, ensconced in the maelstrom of opener, “White Collar Love” (itself a nicely Stooge-y groover) strangles notes in all the right ways…he imbues lines like “Done too many drugs, and now you don’t feel anymore…and all you want is more” with a perfect amount of weariness and understanding.  The night’s going to go on forever, and even though you’re long past the point of this being fun, you’re gonna ride it out. 

Nine-minute juggernaut “Get Fucked” sums up the band’s aesthetic nicely: “Give us something real, something we can feel.  Or get fucked”.  Baca’s guitar’s pulsating notes bounce and wah-wah back and forth over his cousin Ian’s lumbering bass as other cousin Jamie bashes away on the kit. If it sounds a bit too similar to X’s “My Goodness”, I don’t see that as a problem.  Wake Up Lucid have all the right influences and make simple, powerful rawk.  

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