QRO MAGAZINE
cd reviews • November 29, 2011
Ted Chase
Rocket Surgery
qromag.com

7.5

The sound of the road isn't just for garage-rock, and twang isn't just for country.  Sounds can get pigeonholed based on the latest trends.  On Dark Matter (QRO review), The Lost Patrol brought emotion into a new arena, and now they haunt with the road, twang, saxophone, and more on Rocket Surgery.

Starting with the road-spook of opener "Dead or Alive", The Lost Patrol aren't here to comfort you on Rocket Surgery.  Instead, it's a chilly feeling of abandoned county roads with empty barns and ghost towns, like on the slower, darker, farther away "Coming Down", or the slyer & twang-ier "Don't Give Me Love".  The echo-sustain on the twelve-string acoustics brings out a harpsichord-like sound on the penultimate "Love" and especially middle track "Not the Only One", and the harpsichord is the most haunting instrument there is (even more than the xylophone, which is, "The music you hear when skeletons are dancing" - Homer Simpson).

The Lost Patrol can do a brighter sound, such as on "Play With Fire", but their tendency to sway can get a bit maudlin ("This Road Is Long") or forgettable ("Lost At Sea").  Rocket Surgery isn't completely un-country - closer "I'm On To You" doesn't even need the ‘alt-‘ of alt-country - or un-garage - see the relaxed "Sweet Ophelia" - but they can also pull out the sax-o-mo-phone on eighties-like instrumental "3 am".  There's much to find in the highways & backwoods of The Lost Patrol..

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