SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: THIS LONESOME PARADISE – DEATH MOTELS

THIS LONESOME PARADISE
DEATH MOTELS
BAD VIBES GOOD FRIENDS

Keep the tempo slow. Saturate the guitar sound with echo and tremolo – no fast chromatic power chords or whizzing licks. Have the vocals at least baritone in range with some added harmonies. The rhythm section must always pace themselves. Have lyrics such as, “I call it love/The pain that you bring” and “Rain pouring all around/I drift into a spin.” There. You’ve got it. Well, at least a calling card for your band and as good a rival to modern radio as one could hope for.

These points are not meant to be ironic or condescending. They’re just what This Lonesome Paradise has opted to do. In some ways, it’s refreshing. Their new EP Death Motels has only six tracks, none of which are shorter than four-and-a-half minutes, and the band seem to revel in it. The opening track, “Let Us Prey,” is slow tempo-ed and darkly atmospheric, as is the second, “Changelings,” but with added distortion. By the time one hears “Love Crimes” and “They Want to Dance with You”, the listener feels submerged in a gothic romance, complete with, well, more slow tempos but with added amplifier hum and the aforementioned lyrics of pain, love, and despair. This band wants to go dark, keep it slow, and clearly not try to rush into the charts.

But that appears to be the point: This Lonesome Paradise is there to use their tasteful instrumentation, dense vocal harmonies, and not-in-a-rush rhythms to lull one into their dark corners of emotional exploration. It’s far from conventional but given what is heard in the popular sphere nowadays, a conscientious listener can be easily lulled into all the tracks and embrace the music that the band seems to almost create in the shadows.

If there is any criticism, the sound of Death Motels is somewhat familiar. Goth rock, stoner metal, and much drone-based avant garde music has ploughed these furrows before. Granted Death Motels seems more in-line with psychedelia as the music swirls and builds in and out of vocal climaxes. This Lonesome Paradise are dramatists with their music, and one gets a sense that seeing them live in a darkened club or theatre, or even having their music used for the length of an equally dark crime or macabre film, would be the ultimate format to absorb the power of their music.

If music lovers can appreciate something way off from what they might otherwise be hearing day-after-day, it’s safe to say that That Lonesome Paradise is a top option. It might not be something to swing a beer stein to or play on the stereo for a night out, but the tracks on Death Motels are seductive as a good, by-oneself listening experience.

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