Philidelphia's The Stone Eye don't mess about, less than a year from the release of their third album "The Meadow" the band return with another platter of intoxicating groove and fuzz drenched riffage, this time flying under the working title of "Kevlar,Kryptonite, Gloria"
The unassuming artwork of an industrial smokestack looming over suburban dwellings may fool the listener into expecting something a little stark and equally industrial from The Stone Eye's new album and although there are moments of starkness and indie flavoured industrialism to be found among the eleven songs presented here, the overriding impression is one of swaggering bluesy, stonerized, hard/classic rock. The Stone Eye for all their angsty posturing and fuzzy seriousness are, at root, a blues band, ok not your regular twelve to the bar blues band, but a blues band nonetheless. That they cleverly hide their blues roots beneath a mountain of fuzz, discordant noise and occasional indie flavoured acoustics is to their credit but every now and then the mask slips and those blues credentials peek through the smokescreens of indie melodies, grungy dynamics and stonerized distortion and show themselves in all their naked glory and when they do it is quite breath-taking.
Overall The Stone Eye's "Kevlar, Kryptonite, Gloria" is a diverse and delightful album full to brimming over with solid musicianship and strong vocal performances and is packed to the rafters with songs that, thanks to strong songwriting skills and clever arrangements, are not reliant on just riffs to pull them through.
Check 'em out....
© 2018 Frazer Jones
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ReplyDeleteAwesome review love what you do bro, ever thought about adding rating albums ?/10 based on your personal opinion?
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