Written by: Dave Cantrell

[Notice: Be advised, for reasons that will become readily self-evident, the word/phrase “rock’n’roll” appears frequently throughout this review]

Oh go on, admit it. Whether you’re old enough to have experienced it yourself or simply yearn for it while holding the short end of the rock’n’roll stick, you miss the days of uncompromised, unself-conscious, unrecalcitrant, rockin raw power rock that graced with such stunning regularity, back in the vaunted days of yore, the stages of Fillmore East and West, Winterland, the Avalon Ballroom, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium you name it, the kind of rock spelled r-a-w-k that came with built-in visions of motorcycle black leather from (Motör)head to toe, shamelessly shirtless solos peeled off with one boot-heeled foot on the monitor and backstage riders consisting of nothing but Jack Daniels and raw meat. Yes, we’re talking mythic and not a little hellbent, the kind of band that not only pre-dated the likes of AC/DC, Guns & Roses, and countless hair metal gonzoid combos but was in fact was their sacred fountainhead of inspiration.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we present Lunar Electric, an LA-based trio that has arisen from the smoldering ashes of the briefly-tenured Resin Gypsy, whose 2012 self-titled, self-released debut earned them notoriety and kudos from certain circles (including VH1’s That Metal Show) and from whom guitarist/singer Dre DiMura and drummer Kaleen Reading. Toss in Austinite Geena Spigarelli on bass and you’ve got yourself quite the spellbinding little unit whose amperage is as much a product of their redemptive rock’n’roll souls as it is the juice flowing out of the wall sockets.

Not exactly troubled by any concept of overt sonic sensitivity but instead unashamedly busting out the power(trio) chords, a bass that sounds as if it just ate Cleveland, and drums that have only now come down from the mighty Mountain tops, along with some truly electric guitar outbursts that will make you thrilled to be a species with ears that has a penchant for rock music, Lunar Electric bring four tracks on this digital-only EP that allow you to throw devil’s horns while holding on to your intelligence.

Setting out their stall with the roof already on fire, “Bread & Circuses” comes storming in the ears with a layered, tightly-wound fury boasting sweet Van Halen-esque squalls that would have Dave and Eddie, by this point anyway, cowering in the corner because with bands like this worming their way into the public consciousness there’s not much need for the wilting old guard. The fact the track finishes with a 20-second gallop that suggests Gallows Pole-era Zep only plunges the dagger in further.

Whether by arpeggio or innuendo, the Led Zeppelin influence is never too far from the surface here, not least on the roaring, stratosphere-vaulting “Sleepwalker” with its boom-boom Bonham chug-drive and utter unvarnished confidence, the three playing as if they could land tomorrow at Castle Donnington as unknowns and leave an hour later with the metal masses bowing behind them in an awed unison. Whereas the more prominent solos do derive from the LA school more than the reforged British blues that Page favors (leaving off the actual, straight-up blues appropriation scandal that’s dogged Zeppelin in recent years), the fact remains that had Lunar Electric emerged in 1968 there’d have been little doubt as their rise to high-profile prominence. Further proof of this comes in the bar-chorded head-nodder “Moonlight,” a (as it turns out) blues-structured workout that gives DiMura free range to shred though only just enough – one thing this outfit never is is indulgent-for-the-sake-of-it; a finely-tuned economy is where it’s at and the band knows it – and final track “Crossfire Child,” an instantly iconic monster that’s half thrash, half Sabbathy sludge, vocals near incendiary with something approaching rage (“tell the poor man he’s hungry“) and an era-defining outbreak of a solo toward the end that consumes all comers and proves all by itself that this band deserves wider attention.

As to which era that solo defines, we’ll leave that up to you – we kind of think it serves as a bridge across the decades to now – but in the end who cares because good goddammit we’ve just gotta tell you, if you value in the least the current state of classic turn-it-up-to-eleven rock’n’roll, do your bit and buy this EP.