Album Review: LaMP lights up in new album 'One of Us'

(Royal Potato Family, CD, digital, vinyl)

Near the middle of an extended jam on “Cosmo,” the opening track of their third album, One of Us, LaMP offer a perfect example of how the trio’s brand of alchemy works. Ray Paczkowski finishes laying down a ferociously funky solo on his trusty Hammond organ as guitarist Scott Metzger unleashes a wave of arpeggiated notes. The two forces meet Russ Lawton’s hard-charging drums, and we feel something locking into place as they create a pulsating, powerful jam laced with equal parts virtuosity and wild abandon.

LaMP stands for Lawton, Metzger and Paczkowski, who perhaps didn’t want to be mistaken for a law firm. Paczkowski and Lawton have been at this for a long time, playing together in the Trey Anastasio Band for the better part of 20 years, as well as in their duo Soule Monde. Over that time, the two musicians have forged a near-telepathic bond, resulting in interplay that can light up the stage.

In 2019, they brought in Metzger, who handles the Jerry Garcia side of things in Joe Russo’s Almost Dead. On paper, it made a ton of sense: Two veteran colleagues of one of the biggest names on the jam scene add a guitarist trained in the Grateful Dead method. On their first record, the combo quickly became something more potent than just an all-star jam band.

LaMP’s eponymous 2020 debut was funky, proggy and utterly fascinating. The trio followed it up with a live album tracked at Burlington jam mecca Nectar’s that showed the musicians’ synergy evolving.

One of Us continues that upward trajectory. There’s no ponderous vamping or pointless moments, no waste or excess anywhere on the record. It is a lean, mean, funky-as-hell collection of jams from masters of their craft.

“Nice Girl (Walks Loud)” finds the band in a swinging, playful mood, riding a surf rock-esque riff from Metzger into a lockstep groove that will no doubt get a packed club dancing.

The trio swerves to a dark jazz funk mode for “Stalker List,” with Paczkowski thrusting stabs of organ against ghostly volume swells from Metzger. Their deep interplay comes across like a conversation in a Montréal bar where patrons slip from English to French and back in the middle of a sentence. In their own conversations, these two musicians can choose to paint architecturally or go full Jackson Pollock and splash color across the canvas.

The band recorded One of Us at Tank Recording Studio in Burlington, continuing an excellent run of top-notch sounds from producer and engineer Ben Collette — who, like LaMP, comes from Vermont’s wide world of Phish-related creatives.

One of Us drops on March 21 on streaming services; visit lampband.bandcamp.com to preorder. For those who want an early listen of the record, LaMP throw a two-day release party at Nectar’s — where else? — on Friday and Saturday, March 7 and 8.