London-based Shield your Eyes create the sort of spazzy lo-fi DIY rock that you can not help but fall in love with from the first few listens. Their latest release, ‘Volume 4’, starts off with genre flipping ‘Larkspur’; a smash-mouth clash of drums, bass and squealing guitars before a gorgeous calm settles throughout the verse (have a listen below).
Elsewhere ‘Tryna Lean A Ladder Up Against The Wind’ is a minefield of time signatures and barely-in-tune guitars before throwing out frantic guitar solos that sound like they are about to collapse under their own weight and ‘Until I Find A Natural Way’ and album closer ‘Schutze Deine Augen” hit the “rattled out progressive blues” tagline found on their website.
Album highlight ‘Glad’ takes the American lo-fi sound and does it better in three minutes than the entire latter half of Blur’s career. Tracks like ‘Glad’ and ‘Crowd’ also work well to break up the pace of the album (a calm before the storm) but also just as a stand alone song ‘Glad’ is a rather amazing piece of work.
The vocals throughout the album fall into the “love or hate” category, they can be best described as off-kilter… or bloody insane, but personally they fit the racket that makes up the rest of the album.
The album falls just shy of the forty minute mark, which is for the best. ‘Volume 4’ will be a test for most to listen to. Production wise… well there isn’t any, but Shield your Eyes play so well that it just adds to the charm of the album (and it’s lo-fi y’kno).
Turn it on and turn it up LOUD.
Released October 17 2011 on Function Records
Echo Rating (((????)))
Posted by Mark Robinson
