Wake Up Lucid Stream Gone with the Night EP in Full
Last time we heard from Los Angeles trio Wake Up Lucid, they were issuing a heartfelt invitation to “Get Fucked.” That song (streamed here) is the nine-minute penultimate jammer on the half-hour Gone with the Night EP, which is set to release on March 31 through the band’s own WUL Records. And as one of the six tracks on the offering, it’s no less a standout than it was on its own, but as fate has it, “Get Fucked” is only one slice of the stylistic whole of Gone with the Night, and Wake Up Lucid — cousins Ryan, Ian and Jamie Baca — range even further outside genre bounds on songs like “Don’t Fear” and “White Collar Love,” incorporating elements out of Americana, grunge, fuzz punk and shoegaze for an enticing and varied approach that offers full-length flow across what’s still billed as a shorter release.
Easily-enough split into two vinyl-ready sides, Gone with the Night opens with the immediate rush of the aforementioned “White Collar Love,” with its tense chugging and buzzsaw leads, punker snarl and underlying moodiness. Some sonic similarity to the post-Queens of the Stone Age garage-isms of Elvis Deluxe‘s 2011 outing, Favourite State of Mind (review here), but 
it’s a passing thing, and by the time they’re into “Let it Roll,” Wake Up Lucid are on a more languid trip, a rolling groove persisting for the 4:50 span that transitions smoothly into the subtly organ-laced ramble of “Don’t Fear,” as pretty as it is threatening. “I Want” follows, reigniting the sexualized energy of the opener, and serves more or less as a manifesto for the mindset from which the entire EP emanates, drenched in attitude and wah guitar, thrusting into a crash-wash apex that closes out the first half of the release with a fade of feedback.
Side B goes every bit as far, if not farther, aesthetically, but in the span of two tracks. The extended “Get Fucked” opens, and a 5:45 title-track closes, but between the two there’s a significant amount of ground covered. “Get Fucked” remains a serious, significant jam built on a foundation of gorgeous bass tone and wide-open drum swing. It has its upbeat moments, builds to a head early and shifts through verses, but the primary impression is a heavy hypnosis, thick on vibe and getting into a wash of noise in the second half before transitioning back to its central groove in the last minute and fading into the quieter strum of “Gone with the Night” itself. The closer teases an explosion but is ultimately restrained in the spirit of “Don’t Fear”‘s rural grunge, electric guitar layered in to fill out the atmosphere more than to serve as a focal point, as well as to make the final statement in a soulfully fuzzed last solo.
Their varied approach turns out to be one of Wake Up Lucid‘s best-used assets on Gone with the Night, but that shouldn’t necessarily discount the individual performances either. Whatever level you want to take it on, the EP moves with deceptive efficiency, and for something that’s only half an hour long, it’s awfully easy to be caught up in its changing currents.
Please find Gone with the Night in its entirety on the player below, followed by some more background on the band courtesy as ever of the PR wire, and enjoy:
On their upcoming fourth release Gone With The Night, Los Angeles gutter rock trio Wake Up Lucid puts it simply: “Give us something real, something we can feel. Or get fucked.” This statement resounds as both rejection of fakery and pursuit of honest music, which have remained Wake Up Lucid’s only guidelines for writing and performing throughout the half decade’s worth of their existence. The new album was produced by Icarus Line’s Joe Cardamone at his studio, Valley Recording Co. in Burbank and is being released March 31 on WUL Records.
Gone With The Night is a sampling of the fruits of the group’s determined efforts to develop further as song-writers, offering songs that are much more focused and realized, and diversely dynamic — a departure from the band’s usual m.o. of grit and groove hammered-out at high volumes — while still maintaining the inimitable Wake Up Lucid vibe that has crept around L.A. for the past few years.
Their authenticity and immediacy as writers and performers is rooted in their experience of growing up together in the same extended family—a musical one to boot. After pursuing their respective musical aspirations in other outfits, they formed their own some six years ago, distilling their now matured, ripened abilities into the woozy juggernaut that is Wake Up Lucid.
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Tags: California, Gone with the Night, Los Angeles, Wake up Lucid, Wake up Lucid Gone with the Night, WUL Records
