reviews / 2022

VACANT LOTS - Closure

Name: VACANT LOTS – Closure
Item: Closure
Rating: 6.5
Author: Ruben Gavilli

2022 (Fuzz Club Records)

post-punk, synth-pop

by Ruben Gavilli

6.5

The Vacant Lots' sound, as is well known by now, is a little wunderkammer of rock's darker side, one that's won over some notable fans right from the start. Now on their fourth album, the two New Yorkers no longer have anything to prove to anyone and, backed by meticulous production, they allow themselves to cruise on autopilot into synth-pop, post-punk and dark territory: barely twenty-three minutes of electronic pulses and industrial echoes that, however, don't sink their teeth into the paranoid nightmares of Suicide, but instead chase geometric, hypnotic shapes, relying more on the power of repetition than on rock aggression.

Brian MacFayden and Jared Artaud shift the focus even further, into an electronic funk nocturne on "Chase" and "Eyes Closed", while "Red Desert" brings the classic Reid brothers dose of narcotic gospel (complete with Spacemen 3-esque echoes), which soon detonates into the stardust of the sardonic "Burning Bridges".

The opening one-two of "Thank You" and "Consolation Prize" piles on 80s post-punk tropes, while "Obsession" goes down the road of automated voodoobilly.

In short, if you know the duo, you know what you're in for, and if you don't, it's easy enough to guess the rules of the game. It would be interesting to find out what the pair could do if they dug deeper into their softer side, of which they offer just a small taste here. For now, we wait for future efforts that might head further in that direction.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

15/10/2022

Share on

This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Ruben Gavilli, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition