| CD REVIEW Eye Alaska |
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Band : Eye Alaska According to Wikipedia, “…Eye Alaska is an Alternative Rock band from Orange County, California…”. Amazon.com comes perhaps closer to the truth when they wrote “…proclaiming their eclectic multy-genre sound as “Cinematic Rock”…”. Ah…well, they’re certainly alternative, as in definitely different in their musical approach of things! With two former members of Dead Letter Diaries (singer/ programmer Brandon Wronsky and guitarist/ backing singer Cameron Throwbridge), the band was formed in 2006…the three other members in the band being guitar & piano player/ backing singer Chase Kensrue (brother of Thrice’s Dustin Kensrue), bassist/ backing singer Christopher Osegueda, and drummer Han “Harry” Ko. In February 2008 EA signed to Fearless Records, who released the band’s 5-track Yellow & Elephant EP (which also came in a 6-track edition) in July. Obviously, the boys have enough imagination, because only a year after that EP’s release there’s now a full-length, which sees elements of Emo Pop (mainly induced through the lead singer’s moaning high pitch, which occasionally even goes girlie), Electronica, Hip Hop, R&B, bombastic Boy Band (quite a bit of orchestral sounds) and Etheric Rock mixed in a nicely intricate whole. Some tracks flow into each other, making for a certain continuency…and although the band has two guitarists (of which one occasionally turns to the piano) there’s a couple of tracks which don’t even have guitar in it. In one case (“Miles Don’t Mean Anything”) the guitar remains acoustic, but overall when the guitar is there, it’s etherically whaling in the background…occasionally even quite “heavily”. In two songs, namely “Show Me Daluv” and the short “Star Pilot”, the additional vocals by VerBS give those tracks a slight Reggae Rap flavouring…but overall there’s a Boy Band feel through the harmonic vocals, and it’s only thanks to those ecstatic guitar moments and the nice Progressive intricacies that this album becomes interesting to lovers of guitar music! But anyway you look at it, the album’s reception in the US (where it shot to #38 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, has already proven that these guys have found a niche in hybrid music which actually works! For some reason, EA made a bunch of songs (5 off the full-length, 2 more off the EP) which were posted at myspace.com/eyealaska unavailable, leaving only the album’s first single (for which they also made a video) and album opener “Walk Like A Gentleman”. Oh, just found out there’s still mmore full-length tracks at the band’s Purevolume.com page…and they also posted a couple of (live) videos at Last.fm! When you’ve listened to what’s available there you will either love or hate what Eye Alaska does…but chances are that, like me, you’ll love, otherwize you wouldn’t have kept on reading this article thus far! Of course, loving is one, getting into my year-lists is another (although if given the chance of a couple more listening sessions, that event is very much within the realm of possibilities, you know!). 90/100 Tony. |