[SIC] MAGAZINE
cd reviews - September 22, 2014
Brett Spaceman
Chasing Shadows
[sic]magazine.com

7/10

The Lost Patrol have also been a constant presence in my reviewing career, dating back even before I launched [sic] Magazine. The band are loaded with contradictions. They are somehow noir-ish but in full technicolor. They are instantly recognisable, yet virtual unknowns. They need to catch a break. They shine.

I cannot remember what number album this is. Somehow it doesn’t matter. TLP make music that only they could make. Theirs is a signature sound. Jaunty sixties inspired pop and that Mosrite guitar twang. You can’t escape it and you don’t even want to. It’s mentioned in every review because it’s there in every release. How many bands can make such claims of uniqueness? This time around they have gone for toe-tapping simplicity. Chasing Shadows is TLP in ‘easy listening’ mode. For a band whose records are already pretty accessible (and accessibly pretty) that’s saying something. Yet there’s no getting away from Chasing Shadows as a lightweight offering from the New Yorkers. Nine short tracks make up the album and the darkest they get is probably frosty, French language song ‘S’enfuir’. The rest is breezy pop ephemera, the kind of music The Lost Patrol could make in their sleep. If not sleep, then somewhere between waking and dreaming. Penultimate track ‘Hurricane’ is archetypal TLP and you can’t quite believe that you didn’t already own it. It’s that kind of album folks, in that it is sure to please existing fans but may not be the one to break them through to some new level.

Worlds collide in the universe of The Lost Patrol, David Lynch bumps up against Quentin Tarantino. Dream pop nudges surf country and reality bleeds into fantasy. The band belongs in the movies or a television series. Whatever is the modern day equivalent of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (I don’t watch television) would certainly suit. I have nothing negative to say about Chasing Shadows. Mollie still sounds assured. She manages to flicker between two personas like a firefly, one minute playing the maltreated victim, the next, man-eating vixen.

I kinda want to get eaten.

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