Review Summary: The boys are bringing grunge back around town
The term “stoner” seems too readily applied to any sort of rock with clean sung vocals and more distorted than average guitars, which is not only somewhat derisive, but also eliminates the conversation on the complexities of bands who play this type of music. Stoner music flows fast and free in these days of legal weed and loud amp worship, but aesthetically it tends to stick to the desert biome speaking chants on toad bongs and space wizards. If the songs aren’t so long and the
Electric Wizard-esque doom isn’t quite pumping, let’s talk about it like it is: good old rock.
That’s not to say we can’t further pigeonhole a band like Lo-Pan if we wanted to, and to do so might actually bring glory to a subgenre lost in its way coming back. In the time of the internet youngsters and mid-20-somethings are discovering older music at a much-exacerbated pace compared to decades past, which leads to revivals of all kinds of styles to the forefront. Grunge has its few fledgling followers, but still struggles to find a grip in radiowaves still choked with a glut of glittering indie rock and the now-reburgeoning hardcore scene (thanks,
Knocked Loose).
Across nine songs Lo-Pan don’t just get well soon, but showcase themselves as pretty darn well off to begin with. Each track buzzes with an electricity that only comes from a band excited to play what they’ve made. The riffs bound across the hills like a dune buggy cranked to its absolute limit, truly taking rawk buster legends like
Fu Manchu for a ride for their weed and surf money. There’s of course adequate draws from grunge mainstays
Alice In Chains and
Soundgarden, with Jeff Martin’s voice floating high above the dirt-grinding guitars like a hawk on the eye for small prey. “Northern Eyes” will snap more than a few necks with its boulder-dropping riffs as well as snag ears with its catchiness. This sort of clean, cool heaviness is unfortunately underrepresented these days, but at least here the mid-90s are back with Lo-Pan at the steering wheel.
At almost exactly 45 minutes
Get Well Soon is both lean and meaty enough to satisfy, especially with its maintained tempo across. The fuzz is turned up to 11 and even without knowing a word of the lyrics the songs are ready to rip your throat with the top down in the convertible driving along the beach. Tracks like “Ozymandias” grumble and rumble, “God’s Favorite Victim” brings the sunniness of
Torche with Vitamin D-baked riffs, while “Harpers Ferry” takes a more psychedelic pill with purple auras flying off the guitars in rainbow waves. It’s all rather dusty for a band from the middle of Ohio.
