Lustra
What You Want and What You Need
X Off Records
7/10
Some bands were made to rock. From the moment they walk on stage and strum a few chords, their deafening guitars silence the crowd and cow onlookers into submission like a beefy Greco-Roman wrestler. Lustra is one of those bands. Rising from relative obscurity in Boston, they have managed to carve a niche for themselves as one of the few ’00 groups willing to bring their A-game to the rock and roll party. But even as they release their third album What You Want and What You Need the group still has plenty of searching to do.
From the moment the first chords of “Better Unknown” hit the ears, it’s obvious that both Chris Baird and Nicolas Cloutman have the skills- and the cajones- of genuine stars. So much of this album is reminiscent of the Foo Fighters, Everclear, and The Killers that it’s hard to believe that it dropped in 2008. On “It’s A Shame About Boston,” Baird taps into his inner, angsty punk rocker, singing lyrics like “Please don’t come and see my band/because I don’t want to see your band/and I bet I’d forget it anyway.” “White Powder” finds the singing-songwriting duo tackling the tough issue of drug addiction, with cryptic lyrics recalling the best of Nirvana and Vintage R.E.M. It’s as though they are in a musical séance with dead rockers of the 90s, channeling the spirit of Kurt Cobain through and through.
While the first half of the record is solid, the last half finds the album uneven. “Greeting Card” is a riot, but despite the best efforts of the band, songs like “Kids in Makeup” end up sounding repetitive. Luckily, the album is saved by a remix of the classic “Scotty Doesn’t Know.” There is enough creativity and fun, though, to go around, and they prove it in spades on many of the latter tracks. Baird, in particular, has proven himself to be an insightful and interesting poet of the East Coast variety. The rest of the band isn’t that bad either.
Though there is a lot to recommend for Lustra after three albums there is still plenty of work ahead for them. Not many records are flawless, and even the best artists in the world sometimes falter in their quest to create the perfect “sound.” Still, as far as things are concerned, this band has decades of a career left in them. Definitely worth keeping an eye on. At $13, it practically screams to be added to a record collection.
–John Winn