Wake Up Lucid

Look Alive People

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

This here is a little 6 song EP from Los Angeles trio Wake Up Lucid. This is more than a band, this is family. Singer/guitarist Ryan Baca and two of his cousins, Ian and Jamie Baca (bass and drums, respectively), have banded together to create the kind of music that they want to hear.

And what kind of music is that? Well, the quick and simple answer is Rock ‘n’ Roll. The not so quick and simple answer is that it is now 2010 and the rocking references and influences that musicians have available to them span decades. This is no longer as easy as saying something like, oh yeah, late '60s groove rock with maybe some dirty Detroit hooks thrown in.

Now you can think about bands like the White Stripes, or the Dead Weather, ‘cause you know that this band has sat around listening to Horehound a few times. The thing is that they’ve also probably listened to Neil Young and Kings of Leon and the Who and Jane’s Addiction as well.

There is a little bit of mellow that falls in at times, but it’s, you know, rock and roll mellow. The song “Two Cents” hits like a Who song filtered through a garage rock jam band riffing on old Led Zeppelin albums, but not quite as heavy as you want it to be. There is a definite touch of Jack White in the vocals, and there are also some nods towards perhaps Wolfmother… or maybe it’s Black Sabbath.

It gets bluesy, like Black Crowes bluesy, it gets raging and rocking, and it gets, briefly, a little trippy. Not over the top psychedelic, but maybe just a little background light show going on.

Six songs, and then it’s done. A rock journey, and while I enjoyed the trip, I end up feeling a little torn between the past and the present. I get hit with strange '60s flashbacks (strange because that’s definitely before my time), and then rocking memories of the late '90s, and then some more current guitar growling grooves. It’s all about taking the old and making the new, but perhaps a more solid decision should be made before the next stretch of sonic highway unfolds.