Lash Crank It Up Review
Lash
Crank It Up
FNA Records
2026
Earlier this year, FNA Records was able to uncover an old release from the long-lost Sunset Strip band Lash. Aside from being named the house band at the legendary Whisky A Go Go, the band apparently didn’t accomplish much before disappearing. Exactly why isn’t entirely clear, there just isn’t a whole lot of information out there, but the fact that they were the house band at the Whisky is enough to make me curious. The fuckin’ Doors were the house band at the Whisky, for fuck’s sake! That’s status right there, I don’t care what you say.
So yeah, I’m in. Let’s take a spin and dig into what Lash was bringing to the table. According to the PR, the band existed from 1989 to 1990, which pretty much tells you how quickly this story came and went. What’s been uncovered appears to be the band’s demo cassette, now rescued from whatever dusty corner of Rock history it had been hiding in and released on CD under the title “Crank It Up”.
And when you hear “1989” and “Sunset Strip,” it’s easy to picture yourself walking into a room through a cloud of Aqua Net, surrounded by teased hair, lipstick, leather, spandex and enough hairspray to ignite the fucking Pacific Coast Highway. But that assumption wouldn’t be entirely fair here.
After several spins, I’d describe Lash as a decent mix of AOR with a splash of Glam/Sleaze thrown in for good measure. I’m getting big Autograph, Loverboy and Night Ranger vibes here more than anything else. There’s that late -’80s Party Rock feel, but Lash wasn’t simply trying to recreate whatever was happening on MTV that week. There are some genuinely good songs buried in these recordings.
Honestly, I can’t help but wonder what might have happened if the band had kept going. Give them a manager who believed in them, a producer willing to spend some time developing the songs, and maybe a little luck, and I think we’d be talking about Lash very differently today. Instead, they disappeared almost as quickly as they arrived, leaving behind what sounds like a snapshot of a band that was still trying to figure out exactly where it belonged.
“Crank It Up” has that late -’80s AOR sound. There’s plenty of keyboard work, which depending on your mood can either be the secret ingredient or the fucking death kiss. I’m somewhere in the middle. Sometimes the keys work beautifully; other times I’m ready to reach through the speakers and unplug them.
The background vocals and some of the arrangements also remind me of KISS in spots, particularly that Paul Stanley-style layered vocal approach. I’m sure some of that was intentional, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wearing your influences on your sleeve. If anything, it makes the record feel even more like a product of its time. You can almost picture the band working these songs out in some rehearsal room, dreaming about getting that big break while every other band in L.A. was chasing the same dream.
Then there are the ballads.
There are one or two here that aren’t aimed directly at teenage girls but seem geared more toward the young adults who had already survived high school and were figuring out what came next. And here I am in 2026, old as shit, and somehow, they still work on me.
“Think of Me” is the thrill of the bunch for me. It has that perfect cinematic quality that makes me picture somebody speeding down a California highway on a motorcycle, probably wearing a leather jacket with the sun setting behind them and some questionable life decisions waiting at the next exit. It just feels like one of those songs that should have ended up in a late -’80s movie.
Then there are the rockers, and these are the songs that wake up the long-lost teenage asskicker in me.
“Crank It Up,” “Lay Your Body Down,” “Angel” and “Bad Boys” are the ones that really get me moving. They’ve got that combination of hooks, attitude and swagger that reminds me why Rock N’ Roll like this still matters. There’s something about hearing this kind of music decades later that takes you right back. You might be sitting in your house in 2026, surrounded by all the shit that comes with being an adult, but for three or four minutes you’re seventeen again, cruising around with the stereo cranked thinking about the upcoming weekend.
I’ll be honest: I wasn’t expecting a whole hell of a lot when I first put this on. Thankfully, there’s considerably more here than meets the eye or ear. Remember that little detail about Lash being the house band at the Whisky A Go Go? That shit matters. You don’t just get handed that kind of gig because you look good in leather pants. You must have the songs, the chops and, most importantly, that elusive IT factor that makes people want to stick around and watch you play.
Lash clearly had something. Unfortunately, it looks like they let it go far too quickly. Maybe the right people never came along. Maybe the timing was wrong. Maybe the music industry simply chewed them up and spit them out like it did to countless other bands during that era. We’ll probably never know.
What we do know is that it’s 2026, and somehow, after all these years, a piece of what Lash left behind has been unearthed. And that’s fucking cool.
FNA Records deserves credit for digging this stuff up and giving it another shot at being heard. “Crank It Up” is from an era when bands still dreamed of making it on the Sunset Strip, when a demo cassette could be the difference between getting noticed and disappearing forever, and when getting a gig at the Whiskey A Go Go still meant something.
There are a limited number of autographed CDs available, so if this sounds like your brand of nostalgia, I’d suggest grabbing one while you can. As for me, I’m picking up a copy for sure. This one is going right on the shelf alongside my Loverboy and Night Ranger albums, where it’ll fit in just fine.
Sometimes the music you discover decades too late is just as much fun as the music you grew up with. Sometimes, all it needed was somebody willing to dig it up out of the dirt.