La Luz - Damp Face EP [CASSETTE]
- by Rob Taylor Release Date:2015-05-13 Label: Hardly Art
La Luz released the Ty Segall-produced Weirdo Shrine last year, their second album proper after 2013’s Its Alive. It all started, though, with 2012’s EP Damp Face, available May 13 this year as a limited edition 10in Vinyl.
In thrall to Dick Dale, The Ventures and Link Wray, this all-girl quartet from Seattle play free-wheeling surf rock with lots of reverb, and garage rock immediacy. They infuse their music with note perfect four-part harmonies, inspired by doo-wop and 1960s girl groups.
As their relatively short career has progressed, La Luz’s sound picture has been amplified by fuzzed-up guitar and additional heft in the drumming and keyboard departments, but there remains one constant right from the beginning, and that’s the beautifully macabre high-reaching vocals, an intoxicating mix of delirious exotica, and the long sighs of dehydrated beach dwellers as they celebrate another baking hot day. Added to the garage rock aesthetic, La Luz have a real kinship with their West Coast predecessors, The Flesh Eaters, particularly their album, Miss Muerte.
Thirteen minutes and five songs of flawless surf-noir, two songs of which - ''Call Me a Day'', and ''Sure as Spring'', turned up on Its Alive because of the positive critical reception this E.P received in 2012. Worth a listen, or another listen.
