Interstate jammers LaMP return with their second studio collection — One Of Us. Featuring Vermont-based Russ Lawton (drums) and Ray Paczkowski (Hammond organ, Hohner Clavinet, Wurlitzer electric piano), alongside Brooklynite Scott Metzger (guitar), the group distills singular, road-honed improv instincts into taut, instrumental epics.
One Of Us, which consists of 10 tracks packed into 35-minutes of kaleidoscopic interplay and club-shifting grooves, is the band’s first studio outing since their self-titled debut, released during 2020, and follow’s last year’s double-dose Live At Nectar’s, which was sourced from two nights at the storied Burlington, VT institution where the band was born.
“If there is a theme to this record, it might be ‘three of us,’” Paczkowski says. “We’re all writers in the sense of courting some kind of inspiration, a melody, a rhythm, a vibe; feeling some kind of spark and bringing it to the band. The goal was to get a fire going.”
While each of the players has extensive experience with other gigs — Lawton and Paczkowski with the Trey Anastasio Band and Soule Monde, and Metzger through projects such as Joe Russo’s Almost Dead — LaMP has hewed its own path.
“LaMP defiantly started with a sound right from the first show and it continues to grow as we write new songs,” Lawton says. “Someone will come in with a song — or I’ll pass along a rhythm pattern — and we’ll build from there.”
Following their Nectar’s set, the guys were hungry to return to the studio to coax to life a fresh batch of tracks. To do so, they decamped to Ben Collette’s Tank Recording Studio in Burlington for a three-day session.
“Recording is like therapy for us,” Lawton says. “Everyone is always writing and we’d built up a new batch of songs that we wanted to get down.”
“Most of these tunes started from beats Russ sent around, and Ray or I would put down a harmonic or melodic idea we thought captured the mood of the groove,” Metzger adds.
With One Of Us, the trio delivers their cleanest distillation of the LaMP sound yet, a mission statement of improvisational groupthink and compositional chops.
Opener “Cosmo,” — the longest cut here, at six minutes — sets the stage with a slow, smoky build which sounds like the guys warming up their gear in a shuttered club, before dropping into a propulsive groove. Paczkowski and Metzger try to out-riff each other while Lawton pushes the band deeper with his crackling beat. The title track “One Of Us” continues to ride this long, cresting wave of funk before a Lawton drum solo signals a spiraling entry into a psychedelic wormhole.
“Nice Girl (Walks Loud)” and “Jasper’s World” showcase a muscular Zeppelin stomp, steamed into a humid shuffle that will undoubtedly rattle dance floors in the live setting.
The backend of the record settles into a stately, groove, highlighted by the blue-hour strut of “Ulterior Motives” and the closer “Clipse O,” where Metzger’s fluid lines skitter and dance alongside Paczkowski’s vibrant keys and Lawton’s inexhaustible beat.
“I think this record has more of a gritty, edgy sound to it compared to the first record,” Metzger says “The first record felt clean and smooth — One of Us has a little more attitude to it. It still emphasizes melody, groove, and accessibility like the first record, but this one feels like we’ve got some more miles under our belt, which makes sense since 2024 was a big year for our little band.”
Throughout its runtime, One Of Us acts as a showcase for the myriad flavors LaMP brings to the table, delivering a listen which works both as deep headphone immersion or a packable-party custom-tailored to deliver the jams to upcoming spring ’25 hangs.
“It’s the next sounds of three musicians who are playing what they feel, and feeling it as one,” Paczkowski says.
