The Lazy Eyes: SongBook | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- Come with me on a brief sojourn to the land of The Lazy Eyes. SongBook lures us straight into their funky, psychedelic world, offering up the aptly named Intro. It becomes abundantly clear from the get-go whose musical merry-go-round we’re about to embark on. Titans in the pantheon of the contemporary Australian music scene such as: Tame Impala, Babe Rainbow, Pond, especially the prolific musical masterminds King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, I’m talking their 2014 albums like Oddments or I’m In Your Mind Fuzz. Perhaps even lesser-known bands like Banana Gun, Orb, or Beans. That’s not to say that The Lazy Eyes haven’t totally made this space their own, because they have indeed, and this latest release is a strong exclamation point to this fact. The Lazy Eyes are very much present, and they will be heard.

I’m a big fan of the period drum sound Noah Martin brings to the fore (that snare, my oh my, that snare). The liberal serving of Middle Eastern tonality that you find on this album blends seamlessly with the excellent bass tone Leon Karagic cuts through with, which is engineered and performed to absolute perfection throughout. A bassline can so easily get lost in mastering, but everything here is so crisp and complimentary to the vocal performances by Harvey Geraghty and Itay Sasha, as well as the myriad of other instrumentation that features throughout SongBook. This album truly hits its stride however with Hippo, a sweeping instrumental piece that just teases you for what the second act of SongBook has in store for your senses.

We cast our gaze now on the lead single of the album, Fuzz Jam. Firstly, have these guys packed for us a delightful treat! The music video is phenomenal. A true visual spectacle which you must absolutely indulge in. A driving bassline that’s as smooth as silk, fresh from the source, and drumming that is performed by what can only be described as a human metronome. The fuzzed-out guitars and vocals on this track – in that magnificently high register – serve as a wonderful juxtaposition to the latent, doomy undertones. Fuzz Jam offers up this doom extravaganza a few times throughout, lending a nod to bands like those mentioned above (see The Space Between by Orb, or Stonefield for the guidebook). For me however, what had me hooked was the outro on this track. Those guitar riffs, and delayed vocals suddenly get slapped with a heavy dose of Black Sabbath laden stoner metal. The inner metalhead in me radiated with rapturous joy on my first listen, and the several repeat listens thereafter. For those that aren’t familiar with stoner metal, it’s ostensibly the greatest thing to happen to metal since the first five Sabbath albums, and maybe the stoner metal swan song in Dopesmoker by Sleep, but let’s not get stuck down that rabbit hole.

After Fuzz Jam we’ve got Nobody Taught Me, which wouldn’t be out of place as a Beatles B-side track. It starts with some work on keys, which remind me a lot of the key work on the out-and-out krautrock inspired EP The Gold & Silver Sessions from Elder; the first few notes of Im Morgengrauen compare them! I’m done name-dropping artists now, I promise, I just see so many influences in how this record sounds, and it’s really exciting to hear a great mix of different genres, and influences converge in on one Aussie album with such great execution.

Trance treats us to a tasty instrumental number, which acts as a perfect palate cleanser for the third and final act of SongBook. Where’s My Brain is straight up Gizz worship – I’m In Your Mind Fuzz, anyone?! Prove me wrong, I can wait. It has all the right ingredients. Trippy samples toying with you in the ether, with that tight guitar work from Geraghty and Sasha that deploy their skills (and effects pedals) in such exhilarating ways. Sending us off, ever so gently down the river back to the real world we have Cheesy Love Song. This is a soaring masterclass, fitting of the album’s bookend, and left me personally a bit sad that this whole forty-nine minute escape from reality was over.

I don’t think it’s grand statement to make if I say quite frankly that this album is an instant classic. If you’re a fan of any of the bands mentioned in here, or you’re already onboard The Lazy Eyes crazy train, then you will absolutely adore this album. A real start-to-finish record, or your money back guaranteed(*). At the very least you should be excited that the Australian music scene is really hitting a stride with what we’ve nurtured down here in our little corner of the globe. It’s something truly special, and the more we keep pumping out bands like The Lazy Eyes, the better we are for it. Are we in the midst of peak Australiana? Watch this space, and enjoy the ride…

(*) I have no legal or financial foundation to back this up.

- Arthur Henden.