Lost Dawn - Fever

The cover photo on Lost Dawn’s EP Fever is of someone’s ass in a pair of jeans with the band’s name/logo etched on the left pocket. Not only does it lack originality, but it also seems to forget that for every Sticky Fingers, there are ten Loverboy covers. Furthermore, it’s a foreshadowing of the content. Just as the band blatantly apes the work of their musical inspirations, they conversely have yet to fully distinguish their sound from that of their heroes.

The title track is one of two moments where I think the band tries to define their music, however. After a Lou Reed Transformer era vocal turn, the band takes a meandering jazzy path, then a sudden sharp left into a Black Sabbath exercise before fading out, then back, then out again with a ragged conclusion. It’s a cornucopia of styles and influences.

The second cut was one that was so out of sync with the rest of the EP, I had to double check that I’d downloaded the right file. “Águila” is a stoned groove with a repetitive arpeggio slide riff that lulls you into a stupor. At almost ten minutes in length, it’s not my favorite song at all, but it certainly throws the listener a curve ball, and I give them props for pushing their own self-imposed genre boundaries.

The other four songs are fun if derivative exercises that underscore their as-yet fuzzy identity. “Naked Lunch,” all Bon Scott cocky and tongue in cheek (“Thinking about all those years I never took to learn another language or read more books…Bon jour Madame and monsieur…”) picks up momentum as it chugs along, the bass throbbing as singer/guitarist Stanley Duke chants, “I don’t know, I just don’t know.” “Construction Rock” sounds like a studio outtake from the “High Voltage” sessions and  “Rasputin” boasts the lyrics “Rasputin my baby, you know I don’t mean maybe” followed by a Bolan-esque feline growl. It’s practically camp.

Lost Dawn is a band that need to decide if they wish to be a nostalgic band that proudly wears the badge of a hundred glammy and giddy predecessors, or the band that made the hypnotic closer or the jazz-metal sludge of “Fever.” The band looks and sounds like they are having a great time and remind us that rock and roll is as much about having fun as anything else. I’d just like to hear more evidence that Lost Dawn do indeed have a larger plan.