Poetry 'n Lotion | Instrumental Fusion

The members of Tampa band Poetry ’n Lotion aren’t shy at all about waving a flag for their teenage influences. Although the quartet’s main gig is dishing up thick, instrumental music that’s as indebted to modern jazz as it is to art-rock and international sounds, PNL has also garnered something of a reputation for its tribute sets where the band plays one of their favorite classic albums front to back. They’ve done Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, the soundtrack to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and they rang in 2012 with a New Year’s New Wave celebration in Tampa that ran through Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! album. Of course, the notion of hearing the second-best Devo album transmuted into instrumental, jazz-flecked weirdness is just the sort of thing that helps get people in the door, and when the band follows up the closing notes of “Shrivel Up” with a set of PNL originals, you’ll realize the true genius of their approach. – Jason Ferguson