Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Eyesburn
Label: Ammonite Records
Release: 2013
Running time: 55:32
Rating: 4.5/5
Eyesburn are a Belgrade band cultivating a one-of-a-kind blend, fusing three core genres in a fascinating way: metal, reggae and hardcore punk, roughly speaking. Their style brings strikingly unusual, original solutions to songwriting, and as a result, one thing is for sure: nobody sounds like them. Their sound is instantly recognizable and totally unique. The golden age of cross-over was the nineties, when bands like Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Rage Against The Machine, Faith No More and Living Colour,… rode the wave of huge commercial success. And 1994 is the year Eyesburn were born.
The band’s seventh studio album, »Reality Check«, is their first after a five-year break. »Eyesburn« split up in 2006 and got back together in 2011. A “hefty” 15 tracks on the new album prove the pause was more than welcome. Fresh ideas were ripening nicely, and it was high time for the band to lock themselves in the studio and get to work on a new record.
»Reality Check« is a logical follow-up to »How Much For Freedom?« (2005), and the band keeps deepening, developing and exploring their musical range, as it’s loosely shaped by the genres named in the first paragraph of this piece. The Eyesburn septet is superbly organized. Two guitars, two trombones, sax, bass, drums, vocals! Plus the obligatory warm blankets of keyboards, even a flute here and there. Everything is exactly where it belongs, and the character of the songs reflects years and years of this bunch of musicians living under the same “musical roof”. They know precisely where to place the arrangement for each instrument, so the sonic landscape, meaning the way its building blocks are laid out, is used brilliantly and packed in just right!
The main vocal melody is often backed up by the horns (trombone, sax), especially in the choruses, along with extra vocal lines. What really defines the band, though, is the constant switching between metallized, edgier (more wound-up) passages and more sophisticated parts where the horns and keyboards take over. It often happens that the massive wall of riffs is propped up by “beefy” (lower-pitched) sax lines. One of the two guitars sticks strictly to the riff, while the other likes to fill out the sound with a juicy wah-wah effect. That’s how the sound gets its fatness!
This switching between the “hard and soft approach” naturally goes hand in hand with shifting rhythms, which fuse metal and reggae most prominently in the rhythmic foundations. The rhythm section is incredible! Polished to the last detail. Flawless. The bass guitar fills the available space in the motifs like a champ, funked-up and unbridled as it thickens the bottom of the band’s sound, and it’s the generator of a tremendous “groove” depth across the whole album (the opener Ways Of Creator confirms that in a heartbeat). And none of this would be possible without the superbly accomplished rhythmic figures on the drums. The band repeatedly veers into trickier time signatures as they play around with rhythmic figures, and several times they build a remarkably effective bridge between reggae rhythms and rhythms of Serbian, Balkan origin. Dustbin, Sudden Fall and Happy And Free (with an added “cowbell”) pull this off with real force. Wildly broken-up rhythms, where you’d better not trip over your own feet or you’ll snap both legs in no time, also sum up the character of Burning Ball (generously metal-edged) and Boycot Call right after it, whose chorus melody lines unintentionally drift toward the melody of Curl Of the Burl by Mastodon. Breakdown insertions into the basic reggae rhythmic principle once again liven up the songs nicely. In this department, don’t overlook Frontline and Time, two seriously effective examples of first-rate fusion of reggae, SKA and metal on the album. My impression is that the band’s hardcore element has gone into hiding this time and is only detectable in traces (Frontline).
All fifteen tracks carry damn finely defined arrangements, with an outstanding balance among every building block of the sound. The flow between the more aggressive and the more organic (softer-played) elements is amazing! And of course, everything Eyesburn do on the album is first and foremost in service of catchy, grabby melodies, created above all by the vocal lines! The band has a remarkable feel for contrasting arrangements. That sparkles especially in the deft symbiosis of seemingly incompatible musical motifs, with which they skillfully leap over genre chasms, as well as in the subtler, more delicately played tracks like Illegal and the closer My People, where the flute woven into the arrangements plays an important role. The vocals stick to slang, meaning deliberately “broken” English, which is a trademark of reggae music. The lyrics are rebellious, set against the repression of truth-loving and freedom-loving thinking and of a way of life that rejects the principles pushed on us by “Big Brother”. The lyrics are socially critical, anti-war, anti-racist. Eyesburn come across as great humanists with an enlightened, progressive spirit, while a bit of that well-known Balkan cynicism and lucidity sparkles vividly through the delivery. Even though the positive vibe dominates the band’s music and keeps giving hope throughout the songs, you can’t ignore the dark side, which shows up mostly in the furious passages of massive guitar riffing!
Eyesburn deepen their uniqueness with the new album. »Reality Check« is yet another document of the homegrown identity of this seriously fascinating “cross-over” outfit, and it grabs you from start to finish. Fifteen tracks show off the incredible symbiosis of the septet, who found fresh creative drive after the five-year break and delivered a stunning album full of unexpected musical solutions that keeps surprising you in a good way and, for exactly that reason, keeps the listener hooked. It’s simply a conglomerate of superb fusion that, with great feel and arranging smarts, merges seeming incompatibility into a gem of original musical substance. An album with no flops and no filler. An album made with great feeling and understandable musical flexibility, and one that heralds the band’s great artistic maturity (and worth)!
Lineup
Nemanja “Coyote” Kojić – vocals, trombone, guitar
Zoran “Đura” Đurovski – guitar
Aleksandar “Lale” Nikić – guitar
Dušan “Dule Sax” Petrović – baritone sax, flute, backing vocals, piano
Vukašin “StarLajner” Marković – trombone, backing vocals
Vladimir “Laza” Lazić – bass guitar
Dejan “Boske” Miljković – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Đurđica “Đu” Gajić – backing vocals on track no. 3.
Production
Miloš “Pileći” Mihajlović & Eyesburn
Track List
1. Ways of Creator
2. Peacefull War
3. Time
4. Illegal (Nation of Millions)
5. Burning Ball
6. Boycot Call
7. Frontline
8. Dustbin
9. True Child
10. Sudden Fall
11. Hold This Way
12. Happy And Free
13. My Friend
14. Dance
15. My People
