Review – Lecherous Gaze – Lecherous Gaze EP

Born of a downtown Oakland flophouse once noted for housing members of High on Fire, Saviours and Drunk Horse, LECHEROUS GAZE delivers thundering, accelerated hard rock that has described (perhaps awkwardly) as “Molly Hatchet drunk on cider, playing Blitz covers and fronted by Joey Ramone”.  Steeped in the Hendrixian guitar-god worship of bombastic 70′s rock and the mixed company rawness of Chuck Berry, Black Flag and Black Sabbath, the band’s impressive musicianship and gnarly vibe blurs the lines between Punk and Hard Rock while front man Panagiotopulos’ soulful timbres inspire comparisons to the legendary larynges of Joey Ramone and Glenn Danzig. 

That’s according to the press release I’ve been given regarding Lecherous Gaze’s debut EP. I’ll agree that front man Lakis Panagiotopulos does sound a lot like the legendary Joey Ramone, this EP is far from a Ramones album. The EP is rather short with only four tracks. The songs, “Phaze”, “Sold”, “Graveyard” and “R’n’R Lust” will take you 16 minutes to get through. Each song averages about 3 1/2 minutes long.

I’d have to say that the EP is fairly good. Entertaining and great sounding, I’ve listened about 8 or 9 times already. It’s catchy and certainly grows on you fairly quick. Punk meets hard rock is a fairly accurate description. At times I couldn’t help but think they reminded me a bit of Puny Human as well. It’s fast paced although “Graveyard” is a bit on the slower side in comparison to the rest. “R’n’R Lust” does bear a striking resemblance to the Ramone’s “Rock and Roll High”.

The EP will be released on March 29th through Tee Pee Records. You can listen to a lo-fi version of the EP on the band’s Myspace and hear for yourself.