Eyelids - No Jigsaw

 

We love Portland's Eyelids. As proof, you can read our review of last year's album, A Colossal Waste Of Light here. This is something different across 26 songs that fill a double LP celebrating their 10 Year career. This isn't a Best Of, but a collection of rarities and outtakes that reveal even more about the band and their influences.

Contained within are unreleased recent songs, outtakes and long lost 7 inch releases. It is a great mix of originals and covers sitting side by side. It is obviously a big listen, but a highly rewarding one. Long time associate Peter Buck even takes Lead Vocal on It Hurts Me Too, an Elmore Janes song.

Taking some of the originals first, the band have never been afraid to Jangle or even out TFC Teenage Fanclub and Masterpiece (Wanna Die) and Psych #1b do that respectively. Polar Bear is all happy clappy Jaunty Guitar Pop.

The title track is top notch gentle Psych Pop, Cannon And Dee is beautifully Acoustic and Maybe More is so Dropkick. The covers are a selection of the great and the should be, some are faithful, others inspired. The version of Seven Seas is lightened up and jangled splendidly. 

There has to be a special mention for the cover of one of my favourite songs ever, The Clean's Anything Can Happen. Holiday Innn is wonderful, part Synth Pop, part UK Indie New Wave. The band's take on Enjoy The Silence is faithful yet surprising as is the choice of The Cars' Let The Good Times Roll.

No Jigsaw gives you a big look into the slightly off kilter world of Eyelids. They do the straight ahead so well, but there is a mischievousness that allows them to experiment. They have always ploughed their own field and long may that continue.

You can listen to and buy the album here.

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I Don't Hear A Single Albums Of The Year 2023 : 11 - 20

 



For the last few years We have compiled annual Best Of 's because these posts seem so popular and the aim of this Blog is to get exposure (and Sales) for the artists. A reminder that anything reviewed on I Don't Hear A Single is highly recommended. 

Narrowing things down to this 100 has been really difficult. The countdown is posted in reverse batches of 10. For each album, a song is embedded from the album and a link is provided to the IDHAS Review where you can find further details and how to listen or buy the album

11 Thomas Walsh - The Rest Is History      IDHAS Review

12 Chris Church - Radio Transient      IDHAS Review

13 Armchair Oracles - Nothingeveris      IDHAS Review

14 Eyelids - A Colossal Waste Of Light      IDHAS Review

15 The Anderson Council - The Devil The Tower The Star Moon      IDHAS Review

16 Tamar Berk - tiny injuries      IDHAS Review

17 Smug Brothers - In The Book Of Bad Ideas      IDHAS Review

18 Odds - Crash The Time Machine      IDHAS Review

19 Mothboxer - Breathe      IDHAS Review

20 King Black Acid - The Rainbow Lodge      IDHAS Review

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Eyelids - A Colossal Waste Of Light

 

The Forums who tell you that there is no good music any more and we should all just concentrate on Big Star, Badfinger and Raspberries should be locked in a room and forced to listen to this album. Then ask them what isn't great about it.

If a band like Teenage Fanclub, who I adore, had released an album like A Colossal Waste Of Light, there would be red carpets and bunting and butterfly cakes and everything. With the added Bass Power of Vic Krummenacher, who is all over the album, there should be no stopping the tills from ringing.

This, surprisingly only their fourth, album feels much more Guitar Pop than usual and that really brings out the best in John Moen's vocals. The two opening songs show this to great effect. Crawling Off Your Pages has a splendid jangle to it and Swinging In The Circus has a vocal that would produce tears if it were not for all the hypnotic psych pop riffs. 

They Said So has an urgency that the wall to wall riffs, some of which border on Goth, is top notch. Only So Much adds a Psych Pop Paisley feel to events and you realise this is no ordinary album. The title track is a haunting brooding beauty.

Pink Chair sounds very TFC, but there is way more going on in the background, very Glasgow, very very good. There is even time for a visit to Folkland with the Acoustic tenderness of Misuse. Lyin' In Your Tomb casts you back to the West Coast in 1967.

Finally as if to fully please me, there is the closing I Can't Be Told with its gripping riff which meanders into a Psych Pop fest. There seems a little less of the IRS Indie of days gone past in favour of a big melodic sound, but it works beautifully. 

An album with 13 tracks has to fight hard to keep your attention. The time flies by here and at the end you head back to the opener. This is Pop Rock at its very very best. Big Riffs, plenty of my beloved Psych Pop. but performed with the catchiest of choruses. An absolute winner!

You can listen to and buy the album here.

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