The Living Eyes – The Living Eyes (2013)
Year: 2013
Label: Z-Man
Track Listing:
- Sittin’ Sick
- Wrong Doings
- Down And Out
- Heard It All Before
- Up And At Them
- Economy First
- Outta Doubt
- Slave Labour
- Ways To Make A Living
- Stuck In My Own World
- Cry In Shame
Subculture Media ‘The Living Eyes’ – The Living Eyes Review:
For the younger generation of music fans there is a familiar daydream – a dream where they once found themselves packed into a beer-soaked, smoke-filled concert hall in the 1960s as they watched a young band made up of musos with the names of George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and John Lennon plying their trade. This of course would have been before The Beatles were international stars, the daydream doesn’t work if you can’t say you were one of the first people to discover The Beatles. Well now you can do that with another band.
The comparison between Geelong band The Living Eyes and of course The Beatles isn’t exactly such a far-fetched one to make. Certainly The Living Eyes have learnt a thing or two listening to The Beatles over the years, not only are their music styling very similar but Billy Gardener, Mitch Campleman, Dayle Herbert and Nicholas Hill know how to create a special brand of pop rock, a brand that to be honest it has felt that The Beatles have a hold on for all of these years.
The band’s self-titled new release is an absolute gem of an album, one that you know you are going to listen to over and over for years to come. Opening track ‘Sittin’ Sick’ reels you in with its garage rock fused with 1960s pop sound and the album has you from there.
Short and sweet tracks like ‘Wrong Doings’ and ‘Slave Labour’ leave the listener wanting more while you just know if a track like ‘Down And Out’ had been released back in the 1960s it would have graced itself on the soundtrack for the television series of ‘Heartbeat’, as it certainly would have been a track that would been remembered for a long to come.
‘Heard It All Before’ sees Billy Gardener bring an almost punk vibe to his vocals while it’s the brilliant guitar chords he pulls together with Mitch Campleman that makes you want to give ‘Up And At Them’ another listen.
Again it’s the guitar work on the opening of ‘Economy First’ which reveals The Living Eyes as a band with pure skill while it also shows that as a band these guys know how to write music so catchy that any audience will fall in love with it straight away… a really handy skill for a band to have if they want people coming to their shows and buying their CDs.
Even an average track like ‘Outta Doubt’ is worth another listen while ‘Ways To Make A Living’ again brings some raw emotion to the album… it’s track like the latter that makes seeing The Living Eyes live something to put on your bucket list.
‘Stuck In My Own World’ consists of some melodies that most bands would kill for while it is once again Gardner’s vocals that brings back that raw emotion with ‘Cry In Shame’.
This self-titled album really proves The Living Eyes to be one of the finds of 2013. If you are serious music lover then buying this album is a must while seeing them live should be a dream you fulfill really soon.
