Lately, so many of my favorite bands have set new records for the longest time between big releases, or any releases. And you know what? I’m glad. We all need to just relax – literally nothing’s been the same since 2020 and they keep getting worse in a lot of ways. For that alone, I was happy to wait my ass off for new Lo-Pan music, and wait I did. While I enjoyed their last album, Subtle, I wanted them to take their time and return with something special. There was also the very real, very waylaying cancer diagnosis that drummer Jesse Bartz endured in 2022, proving once again that some of the worst shit seems to happen to the coolest among us.
That is, as far as I know, all in the past though. Lo-Pan focus on the present and take stock of themselves and the greater world around them with Get Well Soon, a title that I’m sure is aimed internally as it is externally as we’ve all endured heavy losses explicitly or implicitly lately. Truth is, we’re all damaged whether we acknowledge it or not. We see abject hell projected onto our phones and other screens each day, whether it’s the latest political maneuver that will have untold effects and damage on us and our communities for years to come made by people who will die in the next decade, or watching entire family trees be wiped out in seconds with bombs we unwittingly paid for with our taxes as Israel launches genocidal blitzes and bloody campaigns against, what, three different countries now? Jesus fucking Christ, bro, how are we all able to act as normal as we are?
While I usually see music, however overtly sociopolitical or based in reality it is, as an escape, sometimes it forces you to sit with that situation, and I’m not even talking about themes or lyrics. The vibe I get from Lo-Pan‘s music on this LP is viscerally empathetic but honest, unburdened by the desire to cheapen the costs or sugarcoat anything. More than ever, Jeff Martin’s vocal delivery is impassioned, a soaring melodic croon that speaks to our torn souls. Guitar and bass from Chris and Scott Thompson respectively are gritty as can be in true stoner rock fashion, but there’s something different resting underneath, something arcane. Bartz’s drums punch triumphantly, perhaps the sunniest instrumental performance on the album, as if each snare strike is a punctuating smile – dude is clearly happy to be here.
I love “The Good Fight” for its tenacity and tone setting. It’s genuinely one of my favorite tracks on the album even though I’m not super hot on the way the guitars introduce the song and album. “Rogue Wave” has an appropriately turbulent guitar solo, masquerading as the sea’s infinitely entropic waters. Lots of movement and rocking (literal and metaphorical) on that track. “Wormwood” sounds like a damn mid-tempo Mutoid Man track – the vocals even have that Steve Brodsky tinge to them. It has that larger-than-life quality and melodic tones that band loves to employ as well. Love it.
“God’s Favorite Victim” is, to my ears, the most obvious, pointed statement with lyrics about having no mercy for the innocent and children dying, a nearly full-circle moment from a lyric on “The Good Fight” that says ‘veneration of the holy land‘ (at least I think that’s what I hear). I also love the knock of the bass on this track. And I have to shout out the weight of “Six Bells”, a song that plays with doom modalities at Lo-Pan‘s heavy rock pace. The instrumental interlude in the center is gooey and atmospheric, the curious end to a hard journey, and honestly a better finish to the album than a high-energy banger would have allowed (those are elsewhere in the tracklist).
There’s a reason there’s a lifesaver on the cover of this album – Get Well Soon is absolutely Lo-Pan playing lifeguard for us, not to mention foreshadowing the many lyrical references to seas, oceans, vast waters, boats, etc., all as metaphors for the difficult, unknowable expanses of life. It’s an acknowledgement of struggle, where we’re at with it, and that we do need to be saved from our upside-down world (note the horizontal mirroring where the lifesaver’s reflection is above, not below) with our evil-darkened skies bloated with clouds of immorality.
So much malaise and yet Lo-Pan find the gall and temerity to be defiant with positivity in their own way. Like I said, the band are not in the business of softening any blows with Get Well Soon – the dense instrumentation should have been proof enough of that – but they are far from heartless. In fact, when all’s said and done, all we got is heart and each other and I think that’s what the band embody the best with their approach to music. This is a thoughtful album, one that I fear won’t get the credit it deserves because people are quick to dismiss this style of music unless they have a developed taste for it. For those with the ear for it, Get Well Soon is a friend, and I hope it brought Lo-Pan some peace to manifest it for us.
Band photo by Meghan Ralston
