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EIGHT STONE PRESS
cd reviews - January 10, 2012
William P. Tandy
Rocket Surgery
EightStonePress.blogspot.com
THE LOST PATROL – Rocket Surgery
Self-Produced
www.thelostpatrol.com
The Shadows-meet-Joy Division. Meet Ennio Morricone. Meet David
Lynch. And that’s just for starters. Indeed, The Lost Patrol’s
sonic spaghetti Western-in-the-sky belies their New York roots. Like stars
that only come forth well beyond city limits, the band’s influences
are legion, yet the product they yield is as singular as a life-bearing
planet.
The Lost Patrol’s third album in as many years, the beautifully
produced Rocket Surgery (2011) carries the listener ever-deeper into a
void untouched by the commercial mainstream. “A softer touch / A
face so sweet / A lust for blood / Awakes the beast,” croons vocalist
Mollie Israel on the album’s opener, “Dead or Alive”,
a vintage tune propelled by the sleepy determination of Michael Williams’s
four-four 12-string and lead guitarist Stephen Masucci’s sparkling
reverb.
Rocket Surgery’s centerpiece is a star-dusted homage to
’50s torch songs called “This Road is Long”. Here, Israel
more than makes good on the promise shown on earlier tracks like “Homecoming”
(from the band’s 2008 release, Midnight Matinée), delivering
what is perhaps her finest vocal performance yet. Coupled with dark lyrics
("You gave good guys a bad name...") and lush orchestration,
"This Road is Long" suggests Skeeter Davis fronting The Moody
Blues-from-under-someone-else's-bed.
But, unlike Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett in The Black Dahlia,
Israel isn’t merely playing dress-up. “Don’t look so
sad / You don’t know / All that you have,” she pleads with
the subject of “Little Girl” as Masucci’s guitar soars
like wisdom of the ages.
To be sure, what distinguishes The Lost Patrol from much of the
“shoegaze” genre is a brand of existential maturity that transcends
kretek-infused apathy. As Israel notes on “Lost at Sea”, “When
the strongest love / Wasn’t built to last / You know the brightest
stars / Burn twice as fast.” Or, on “Not the Only One”,
“You are the remedy / That sickens me.” Even a line like “I
need you / To be mine / Dead or alive” acknowledges that, for better
or worse, we ultimately have nothing if not each other. And for The Lost
Patrol, that means everything.
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