To recap from yesterday - in these trying times, individuals find comfort in the familiar. For me, and I’m sure for many others, a good chunk of that comfort comes in the form of music. So it is that while I am locked in inside, held at an (understandable) arm’s length by my job and society as a whole, I while away the hours by scouring through promos and new music that come into my inbox.
During these days, I hoped to merely find something interesting, and in doing so I stumbled across two revelations – though revelatory for different reasons. Master Boot Record was the first of these, and so consider this the second part of what is a two part review.
Where the joy in discovering MBR came in the unveiling of something novel and different, there is also a profound joy in finding an artist who understands the conventions of a genre with such genius as to render the familiar new all over again.
So, The Heavy Eyes. A band based deep in the blues of Memphis and fully capable of brewing that inexorable heritage into their particular backyard moonshine blend of rock and metal.
At first blush, the combination of fuzzed-out, yowling guitars and Tripp Shumake’s measured and monotone vocal delivery bring to mind the image of Everlast performing a set with Kyuss. That might be an oversimplification, but it’s perhaps the most efficient way to describe the rolling blues vibes of this colorful and vibrant record.
This new record “Love Like Machines,” because it displays such mastery of the best aspects of the genre, begets automatic comparisons to the heavyweights and boutique acts that have come before. If you’ve ever listened to Clutch, Mothership, Scissorfight, Sundrifter, Shawn James & The Shapeshifters, Devil to Pay, Screaming Trees, Graveyard, The Blue Van, Midnight Ghost Train, or yes, even Black Sabbath, and thought ‘yep,’ then you’ll instantly fall in love with The Heavy Eyes. To steal from the sampled phone call at the beginning of Anthrax’s “Cadillac Rock Box,” there’s some mighty fine groovin’ goin' on on this record here.
“Love Like Machines” delivers throughout its brisk thirty-four minutes, and the length itself is worth noting. For the ocean of immersive blues possibilities that this kind of metal offers, The Heavy Eyes show no proclivity for meandering down lengthy paths. The riffs, albeit it customarily tuned to be round and warm at the edges, are punctual and efficient, which lends the album some immediacy in a genre that so often gets lost. Only once does the band adventure past the four minute mark, making for bite-sized blues bullets that shoot straight to the heart of the matter.
The brevity does not listen the impact. The album shines brightest beginning with “Bright Light,” an airy, haunting piece that resonates with a stop and go riff and a lot of empty space, which allows the vocal tone of Shumake to set the tone and pace. His is a voice that one wouldn’t expect to be able to effect that kind of momentum, but there’s something magnetic in his delivery that makes the song seem more direct, more dire.
Part of the genius of “Love Like Machines” is that while it was clearly concocted in a blues metal mold, there’s a healthy streak of grunge in the alloy that lends just enough luster to make the record seem both familiar and cutting edge. The back half “A Cat Named Haku,” doesn’t work without the idiomatic guitar bending and out and out note strangulation of grunge. And perhaps it’s all cyclical – blues metal begat grunge which begat blues metal, but the two are intertwined and both necessary to make this record a success.
The record hits more highlights on the back end with “The Profession,” which moves with a White Stripes beat and an infectious insistence. The drums of Eric Garcia, while not overwhelming, craft a delectable beat that helps float a riff honed over fifty years of blues metal knowledge and distilled into a deceptively simple but no less effective mix. It’s the album’s best track, a rolling good time that could raise the mood of a social gathering, or raise your own spirits during social distancing.
You’ve heard “Love Like Machines” before. You’ve heard it a thousand times, in steamy, swampy clubs, emanating from beer-addled dive bars, hanging out with your friends in a basement, whatever the case may be. Yet you’ve never heard this before. It’s a real skill when a band can make the old new again, and the reinvention of the familiar is always a good day at a time when there are thousands of also-ran bands copying a template without really innovating on it.
If Master Boot Record is laudable because it is the celebration of something new and different, than The Heavy Eyes are laudable because they remind us how fulfilling it is to be greeted by an old friend. It’s a pleasant reminder that every now and again, just for a while, you can go home again.
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