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Aussie psych-onauts The Lazy Eyes take a fantastic voyage to inner space on cerebral “Where’s My Brain???”

“Where’s My Brain???” is 6-and-a-half minutes of largely instrumental motorik-powered psych that ebbs and flows with an organic pulse punctuated with chiming guitar notes and chunky riffs. Analog synth flits in and out but feels like it never truly disappears, an electronic substrate for a sturdy foundation of bone-dry percussion and flat, rubbery basslines. The guitars are truly the stars of the show, dancing and skipping in manic fashion above the mix, melding and distorting through liberal use of effects pedals before leaping apart in cleanly defined passages that drive the sonic narrative ever forward in fits and starts.

Overall the result isn’t necessarily groundbreaking but for fans of the genre there’s a lot to engage with. “Where’s My Brain???” is highly reminiscent of early Tame Impala but tempers Kevin Parker’s proclivity for introversion with micro-doses of otherworldly terror that’s the bread-and-butter of current kingpins Thee Oh Sees and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. That’s not a knock against The Lazy Eyes; they’re certainly wildly creative with the technical chops to play ball in this tight but dynamic genre and are wisely pulling their references from all the right sources. Even if the music doesn’t stray too far from established sounds, it’s still a wild ride that will all but guarantee them a spot on the lineup of a future LEVITATION Fest.

21st century psych is visually obsessed with the Lovecraftian, embracing the unfathomable horror of ancient evils hellbent on the destruction of reality, psychological kaiju summoned from the depths of personal anxieties by chemical experimentation to wage war across the lobes and cortex of mental battlefields in a never-ending cycle of monsters eating people eating monsters. The Lazy Eyes take a different approach to interpreting existential conflict, seeking meaning and resolution from within while taking the familiar tumble down the rabbit hole.

Heavily influenced by the groundbreaking 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, the band cast themselves as the turtlenecked crew of a microscopic submarine plumbing the depths of inner space on a journey through the living universe of the human body. Guitar notes are transformed into oscillating radar pulses as iridescent blood cells and kaleidoscopic nerve endings fill the screen in a celebration of the body’s wondrous mechanics. Veins and tubes and teeth glide by in swirling visions like distant galaxies spinning the in the abyss as the crew bypass the heart en route to their ultimate destination. Rising out of the dark the cerebral surface bears a striking lunar resemblance, the approach guided with mathematical musical precision before the craft touches down amidst an explosion of color and sound and wonder.

Simmering below the surface of midcentury special effects, The Lazy Eyes flirt with a deeper meaning on the very nature of consciousnesses and the core of humanity. Classically rendered in choral poetry in Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice, “Tell me where is fancy bred, or in the heart or in the head?” serves as an alternate thesis for the band’s sci-fi quest through the canals and causeways of the body. Where are our thoughts and beliefs given life? Is love a matter of the heart or of the mind? Do our most wonderful and terrifying flights of fancy originate within the core of our animal being or as a construct of humanity’s unique ability to think and reason? The Lazy Eyes may not have the answers but revel in the pursuit, exploring psychology and biology in equal measure in a quest for deeper meaning.

 

The Lazy Eyes EP1 is available on Bandcamp and streaming on Spotify. Follow the band on Instagram.



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