Fog Lamp

Reviews

Fog Lamp Conversation? cassette

Seven tracks of synth-driven garage psych with a post-punk undercurrent. The sung vocals are stabbing in the direction of the BLACK ANGELS, though not exactly hitting the vein. Perhaps it’s due to the drum machine, but there’s something rigid and mechanical slurping the lifeforce out of these songs like a digital leech. What’s left is a brittle husk whose parts don’t comprise a unified whole. Even the BLITZ cover feels stiff and unnatural in its execution. For this kind of neo-psych stuff to really break through, the band has to flip the script in some form or fashion—otherwise it just withers in the face of more innovative, or competent, or better executed alternatives. FOG LAMP has a sense of style, but the substance is nowhere to be found.

Fog Lamp Anxious Stargazing cassette

FOG LAMP out of Oakland, California is awesome! Cacophonous synth punk for mutants. Heavy riffs combined with SCREAMERS-style song structures makes for delectable tunes. Somewhere between the bashing drums and beleaguered vocal delivery, an almost hardcore aesthetic emerges and puts to bed any thought that this is egg-punk. The title track “Anxious Stargazing” opens with a dirge-like tone and quickly progresses into a tense but clamorous rock, and is then followed by “People are Sponges,” which opens with one of the best bass sounds I’ve ever heard. In all, I highly recommend this one!