Lomita
Downtown Mystic (Indierect)
Indierect reissued a supersized version of Lomita’s debut, Stress Echo, less than a year after its 2005 release, and Downtown Mystic seems destined for an even warmer reception. How do you not love a disc that starts off with a choice Cramps cover, 1980’s “Garbage Man,” and an unruly, growling one at that? That’s hardly all Lomita has to offer. The local quintet’s commingling of spacious twang, R&B timing, and glam impulses – “Inspiration” is as sharp as Bowie’s “TVC15” – is more expansive than Stress Echo, streamlined into a sleek 45 minutes that only drags once or twice. “Pictures and a Postcard,” with Brother Will Courtney sans Sisters, and “Trigger Happy Tongues” are stargazing rustic reveries custom-made for late-night moonlit drives. Downtown Mystic also weaves considerable Old World charm: the Elvis Costello understatement of “Foolish, brooding Bono lilt of “Empty Spaces,” and, “She’s Got Me,” which follows Li’l Cap’n Travis into a Liverpudlian fog. “Leaves in Summer,” with its shimmering guitars, doesn’t lack much on Roxy Music. But back to “Garbage Man.” Lux Interior’s lyrics are as germane here as on Songs the Lord Taught Us: “You can’t dig me, you can’t dig nothin’.” Downtown Mystic deserves to be dug deeply.
This article appears in April 27 • 2007.