Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Eyecontact
Label: god bless this mess records
Released: 2014
Runtime: 20:47
Rating: 4/5
Prekmurje is the corner of Slovenia where the most interesting ideas in musical vision tend to be born. Whatever they take on down there, music-wise, almost always carries a tangible essence of clearly expressed charisma that grabs you and wins you over on the spot with its authenticity and weirdness. No matter the genre. And the story below goes pretty much the same way.
Once upon a time, there was Khons. It was the nineties, and it was Lendava. Sadly, the band never got around to a single official studio release, and in 2008 they decided to pull the plug on everything. From the ashes of Khons, former members Gregor Naglič and Daniel Balažic laid the foundations for their new band. For a while they played as a duo, then the lineup filled out with an extra guitarist, Atila Szunyog, and bassist Teo Graj. In 2011 the circumstances turned favorable for the new band Eyecontact, and they started creating original material, which now comes out this May in the form of a first EP. The band named it »Big Mean Machine«
Even the cover art and color scheme hint that something in there is stomping around and wrecking the place, a beast hungry for blood. That beast is nothing less than an extraordinary chemical bond of chunky, filthy riffs from pure stoner rock desert-dwelling, or, to put it bluntly, »outcast-ness«, hitting the very heart of the rock point with raw force and vehement audacity. The band plows through primordial, metal-pissed riffs with an unpolished, raw garage ring, which gives the EP’s ID card a pulsating, alive and thickly smeared sound and the dynamic spring mattress it demands. The massive wall of riffs built by the two guitars brings the bulk of the sonic filling in its unbridled devastation, though you can’t overlook the sharpened awl of rattling, jangling bass lines or the core of drummer Gregor Naglič’s mighty swings either.
The songs are spiced up with switches of guitar phrases, added ornaments of guitar solos and tempo turnarounds, which over the EP’s running time keeps effectively bending the moods, or rather the atmosphere, of the record. The tracks unfold with a whiff of rage and the tolling of Judgment Day. Plenty of this post-apocalyptic picturesqueness comes from the fiery, passionate singing (Peasant, Let Me Taste Your Suicide), an important building block of the EP’s doomed, and also »villainous«, moods! Eyecontact paint it black with serious dedication and take no prisoners along the way. Semitone combinations in the guitar phrases are a given, if not downright mandatory, since we’re talking stoner rock, a close relative of doom, and both love to draw on the riff elementals of Black Sabbath. Stoner-eyed riffs naturally create a kind of hypnosis that sucks you into the band’s musical world, and the band makes effective use of concise riffs, combining them with several core tempos. In the closing instrumental Irony, the opening rumbling avalanche of riffs rests on almost tribal rhythms.
Esecontact sound special right from the starting point, and they carry charisma. They know how to bring a polished, captivating riff into a song and back it up with rolling rhythms that effectively fan the glowing embers of riff fury. With this first EP the band clearly announces a new oddball on the Slovenian scene of the heavier spheres, and with great commitment it chases the focal point of its own musical vision, which earns it all the attention. Especially for whatever it creates next.
Lineup
Daniel Balažic – vocals, guitar
Atila Szunyog – guitar
Teo Graj – bass
Gregor Naglič – drums
Production
Eyecontact
Tracklist
1. Fehlgeschlagene
2. Hindenbruk
3. Caius
4. Peasant
5. Let Me Taste Your Suicide
6. Irony
