Friday 4/18, The Southern Cafe and Music Hall
With the release of News of the Universe in 2024, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Shana Cleveland led her band, La Luz, to deeper levels of previously staked-out musical terrain. What began in 2012 as a surfy, twanged-out Seattle quartet with ‘60s girl-group leanings has evolved into a deeper exploration of that decade’s sounds, complete with new members and an L.A. home base.
Although it may be a bit of a stretch to say La Luz’s recent full-length and their self-titled 2021 predecessor differ musically, News of the Universe manages to incorporate some novel elements, noticeably in bits like the electronic arpeggiation undergirding “Strange World.” Truth be told, the ’60s influences seeping from the layers of tones and arrangements that peacock throughout the record are too numerous to catalog in anything less than the pages afforded to someone writing a grad school paper.
As such, La Luz dares the listener to try and decode the fast-paced, genre-blending roots that emerge as a byproduct of being well-schooled in rock’s past. Happily, the results are often unexpected and pleasant. For instance, the title track explodes with fuzzy, acid-rock wailing, and thunderous drums, only to give way to reserved harmonies and—I’ll say it—a trippy, yet tentative wandering that meanders to places I wouldn’t have predicted. The band’s vocals have come to the foreground and, at least for the time being, overtake the guitar-playing in terms of maybe what best defines La Luz now.
Opener Color Green is equally indebted to psychedelia, but it also pulls the thread, following it further into the decades beyond its heyday. As opposed to the headliner, these fellow Angelenos present songs that are more of a group effort (as opposed to the work of a singular visionary), with a collection of voices working in tandem throughout Fool’s Parade (2024). I won’t say the band’s breaking new ground as much as it’s just doing its thing—which happens to be a thing that’s been done many times, for better or worse. But you can’t blame it for making more rock music when that’s clearly not the road to fame or fortune in 2025.
Photo: Wyndham Garrett
