Thursday, 18 April 2019

EYES FLY - The Long Return (EP Review)


Release date: April 12th 2019. Label: Self Released. Format: DD

The Long Return – Tracklisting

1.The Dead, Living 05:20
2.She Who Rode 06:58
3.Home Within 07:24
4.Eyes Fly 08:00

Members

Dean - vox
Pete - guitars/fx
Gaz - thunder tubs
Tom - bass/guitars

Review

Eyes Fly is a fairly new band from the UK made up of ex-members of VALFADER who I was a fan of back in my good old The Sludgelord days. So I was excited to hear what Dean and Gaz from VALFADER are currently upto now and the answer is EYES FLY. The guys are joined by Pete and Tom on EYES FLY and the band play an excellent style of Progressive Stoner Metal and Post-Metal.

Their debut EP features 4 songs running for about 28 minutes or so. The band feel influenced by bands such as PELICAN and ISIS in places but with a more Stoner Metal based sound. The Long Return is quite clever with it’s style of Stoner Rock/Metal and Post-Metal sensibilities. I didn’t expect Dean to perform harsh based growls on the opening song – The Dead, Living. As I’m used to Dean singing clean vocals. It was a nice touch that shows EYES FLY is a different beast altogether to VALFADER.

The band change style for the second song – She Who Rode. As the band try their hand at 70s Progressive Rock with a doom and gloom atmosphere being played in the background. It’s a very cool style and a different contrast to the opening song. I will admit I was waiting for the heavier riffs to appear. As the song does take time to fully come alive. When they do appear the song becomes something different altogether especially when the trippy and ambient Post-Rock/Post-Metal fully take over.

The final two songs – Home Within and Eyes Fly – are perhaps the heaviest and gloomiest parts of the EP. The music can be quite experimental in places and Eyes Fly feel they are still trying to find their overall sound with this EP. However it’s a wildly exciting release that shows the band have may have huge potential with future releases.

The production could have done with more work but for a debut EP this is an exciting record and will hopefully allow EYES FLY to build a solid fanbase within the Stoner/Post-Metal community.

Words by Steve Howe

Links:

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