Help me information, calling Memphis, Tennessee
If you’ve got the brass balls to start a song with this line: “Gather round, come one, come all, to the greatest show on earth” you probably couldn’t give a flying fuzz what MV thinks about your record.
Tough, cos we are going to tell Memphis trio The Heavy Eyes anyway, and the fact is that “He Dreams Of Lions” is verging on the brilliant.
In truth you already knew that by the time you get or the aforementioned line, because the track it’s from, “Z Bo” is the third here, and if “Shadow Maker’ starts with what Led Zep might have termed a bustle in the hedgerow, by the time the first fuzzed up riff kicks in at just before the minute mark, it’s already abundantly clear where it’s heart lies.
The Heavy Eyes evidently wish they were making records about 40 years ago. We weren’t in the recording studio with them but we’d be prepared to happily wager that retro equipment was used, such is the glorious guitar tone that happens on work like “Saint”.
Even when they update the sound slightly what comes about is still something timeless. Maybe it’s the delivery of Tripp Shumake – who doubles as both singer and guitarist here – but “Old Saltillo Road” could be a Clutch song, and “Hail To The King, Baby” (you imagine the suffix is crucial) is a song for anyone who has ever liked rock n roll. Ever.
Although groove is at the heart of everything they do, THE can get all good and primal when the mood takes them. “Smoke Signals” (sample line – “that’s alright I’d rather fight than bleed”) is not the work of men who are tucked up in bed by 9pm with their cocoa, and you probably wouldn’t want the Monster Magnet-ish “The Fool” (sample line: “red, white, black and blue, you have no clue what I could do to you”) to date your sister just in case, but crikey it’s good fun.
They can also do thumping, driving rock pretty well too, “Somniloquy” is pretty insistent, and the closing “Modern Shells” kicks off with a lead guitar melody that win over any doubters, before taking an about turn about halfway through its eight minutes and happily getting an acoustic out, spitting around the campfire and having a little bit of a chill.
It’s marvellous simplicity, but then what else would you expect from a band that once released a three track EP called “Three Songs”? And it’s also just about perfect. Maybe the bravura at the start was warranted after all. What the fuzz indeed. And why are trio’s always so damn good!
Rating 9.5/10
