Lazer Beam – S/T – Tracklisting
1.Sink Or Swim
2.In The Moonlight
3.Don't Tell
4.Sno Burn
5.You Drive Me Crazy
6.Take Me Home
7.Damn The Reptiles
8.Silver
9.Adam & Eve
Members
Lucust French – All Instruments
Chris Hughes – Percussion
Review
Lazer Beam is the new project from Burn Thee Insects member – Lucust French – and it’s an off-beat version of Desert Rock, Grunge, Psychedelic Rock and Stoner Rock. This album sees Lucust French show his love for bands such as QOTSA, KYUSS and even Alternative Rock bands such as Arctic Monkeys.
The album is a weird offering of many different styles held in the Psychedelic Rock world with the lyrics having a more lyrical effect along with the music that allows the album to offer a more nomadic style of Psychedelic Stoner Rock.
Opening song – Sink Or Swim – is basically a twisted Pop song wrapped up in Punk/Grunge and Stoner riffs and Lazer Beam have a blast playing a twisted style of music that moves nicely between the distorted FUZZ and almost NOISE ROCK sensibilities. Though, the Stoner Rock aesthetics is what will impress you the most but the sweet-natured vocals from Lucust are quite soothing despite the rebellious lyrics.
Second song – in The Moonlight – opens with a more Speed Punk influence being heard first before Lazer Beam move into familiar Fuzz Rock/Doom-Pop grooves. The turbo-charged riffs has a certain early-QOTSA feel and you can hear a direct Josh Homme influence on this song. The lyrics and vocals especially and that’s a very cool thing to hear.
Third song – Don’t Tell – is a more grizzled Desert Rock number with the band growing ever more confident with their “hybrid” sound. The song is quite fast-paced with the different styles of music that remain here. The Psychedelic Poppy moments allow the band to play some cool guitars that have a certain “Grunge” feel to them.
The album contains 9 songs and each allow Lazer Beam to show a different style of Stoner Rock for the majority of the album. The album is quite rebellious which I’ve mentioned before but it also has a sweet-natured atmosphere and that’s down to the stunning vocal performance from Lucust and fantastic lyrics held on the album.
Other cool songs to check-out are: Sno-Burn, You Drive Me Crazy, Damn The Reptiles and Silver. These songs are the ones that I enjoyed the most as Lazer Beam feel more confident with themselves and play some of the heaviest and best sounds of the album right here.
Overall, this is a fantastic and wonderfully off-beat record that impresses with it’s wild and vivid ideas from start to finish.
Words by Steve Howe
Thanks to Sheltered Life PR for the promo. The album will be available to buy on CD/DD/Vinyl from April 09th 2021.