REVIEW: THE VACANT LOTS-ACCORDING TO THE GOSPEL

by Radhika Takru.

So imagine you're a newly-initiated pirate. Now that you've fearlessly managed to sail across your neighbourhood lakes, ponds, and rivers, you're ready for the big time. However, once plonked in the middle of a vast ocean, you discover that this water body is significantly larger than and not quite as forgiving as your practice playgrounds. You look around and try not whimper as you find yourself surrounded by an infinite expanse of deep, sparkling blue. You drift aimlessly for days and days, until finally – FINALLY – you wake up one morning and see the horizon broken by a dark blob in the distance. So bedazzled are you by this miracle of movement that you.... don't quite know what to do. And so commence the completely unpredictable lyrics of 'Land' - "should I call a doctor?/should I call a nurse?/will it make it
better/or..." you guessed it "will it make it worse?"

It's good to know that you've found "laa-aa-aand", because not too long ago you were pondering your, what seemed inevitable at the time, demise. Gloomily you brooded over the unfeasibility of survival one moonlit evening. After all, when you look at things with a perspective made clear by despair, "ship is a tomb, in the night."

Vermont-based The Vacant Lots are a two-piece, if you'd believe it. They radiate dark, droney psychedelic sounds whose creation you'd expect to involve a lot more than two people. I was expecting a lineup of five, to be honest. Named after a Bob Dylan lyric (if you're going to base a band's name on a lyric, there's no better penman to go to, is there?), they've been attracting some well-deserved local attention and now, thanks to us, they've gone international! Woo!

They're not perpetual pirates either. ‘Memory of You’ is a Mick Jagger-inspired vocal set against auditory wallpaper vaguely reminiscent of a more listener-friendly, less deafening Spacemen 3 essence and has a couple of obvious but unobtrusive keyboard chords smeared over the top. ‘Let Me Out’ is a photographic negative of the Brian Jonestown Massacre's Oh Lord - slower, darker and brandishing a “let me out” lyric in sharp contrast to BJM's “let me in you.”

These songs are all off their new record According to the Gospel - you can give them a listen on MySpace, or if your location is geographically convenient venture aboard one of their 'voyages.' I kid you not, that is how they refer to their live gigs (see official site). Maybe there's something to this pirate thing after all, eh?