Thursday 31 August 2017

The Stone Eye - The Meadow (Album Review)


Release date: September 02nd 2017. Label: Self Released. Format: CD/DD

The Meadow – Tracklisting

1.Farewell Lady
2.A Voice in Two
3.Transmission 05:16
4.The Meadow 05:48
5.Yet I Feel so Fine 05:56
6.Henry
7.Colours in Vain
8.Wasted Year
9.Can You See?
10.Dog in the Manger
11.Death from Above
12.The Orchard
13.Heathens

Members

Jeremiah Bertin - Drums
Stephen Burdick - Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Keyboard

Review

The Stone Eye's second album - The Meadow - is an intriguing style of Grunge and Fuzz merged with heavy subtle Stoner Rock/Metal dynamics. It's quite a long album running around sixty five minutes in length. The Stone Eye has created a very cool and different kind of album. It's one that draws influences from many different bands across the Hard Rock/Metal scene. Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam and Truckfighters being the main bands that The Stone Eye sound like on different parts of the album.

Opening track - Farewell Lady - has a classic grunge Alice In Chains feel with a Desert/Fuzz Rock sound being the main driving force of the music. The vocals are very cool indeed.

Second track - Voice In Two - is another grunge/garage rock style offering with the drumming having a very lo-fi sound. The guitars add "meat to the bones" for a thick and heavy sound. The riffs have a classic nineties grunge feel with the lyrics having a similar vibe. The song changes direction towards the end as a dreamlike post-rock/desert rock dynamic appears. It's quite a different sound from the opening moments of the song.

The Stone Eye is a very hard band to describe as they play so many different styles of music on the album. The album is very bold and ambitious and that is a good thing. As The Stone Eye don't play it safe at all on this album. Songs such as Transmission, The Meadow, Henry, Wasted Year and Death From Above offer perhaps the heaviest and standout moments on the album.

The Stone Eye are a duo made up of members Jeremiah and Stephen on drums and guitars respectively, though listening to this album you feel there are more members. As the band creates a "huge" sound that you wouldn't associate with a band consisting of two members. The production of The Meadow is superb indeed with the album allowing the band playing heavy riffs with supreme confidence.

The Meadow is without doubt a damn good album indeed but it can be frustrating at times and that's possibly down to the epic run time. As the album runs out of steam on the last couple of songs. It would have been better if the band released this album as two separate EP's. Anyway, that's the minor complaints out of the way. Now let’s focus on the good stuff. If you miss the good old days of Grunge/Alt/Fuzz/Stoner Rock and want to reminisce how good music was back in the good old days then this is the album for you.

The Stone Eye have delivered an action packed album that is great value for money and one that will keep you entertained from start to finish.

Words by Steve Howe
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