SCHOLARS AND ROGUES
Best CD's of 2008 • February 2009
Dr. Slammy
Midnight Matinée
scholarsandrogues.com

The best CDs of 2008, pt. 1: Gold LPs

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The Lost Patrol - Midnight Matinée

Imagine Duane Eddy teaming up with Hope Sandoval, Jon Crosby and The Church to do a soundtrack for a new David Lynch Western Gothic epic starring Johnny Depp and a wrung-out Elisabeth Shue, with powerful supporting turns from Zooey Deschanel and Javier Bardem, you’re probably more or less on the right track. Or this, from the blurb at CD Baby: “A sweeping, cinematic, wide-screen journey that combines ethereal soundscapes with surf-tinged guitar. Perfect for those late night rides across the desert with the top down…Uniquely original retro-futurism.” Marketing language, sure, but it sounds about right.

Genre? Good luck. Its aching beauty, bespeaking a loneliness bigger than the Wyoming sky at dusk, argues for a spot on the fringes of Goth. The reverberating twang of Steve Masucci’s guitars reminds me not of Country, but of traditional Western. While it’s not industrial by any stretch, it’s right at home on a playlist with bands like Fiction 8 and The Birthday Massacre. Fans of DreamPop and Shoegazer will have no problem slotting it alongside Lush, Catherine Wheel, Blonde Redhead or The Raveonettes. And I think somebody needs to put “Blue Lullabies” in the soundtrack of a surfing flick.

TLP was on my list last year, too, and if they keep this up they’ll be on it again in the future.

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