Moscow based WEARY EYES marry instrumental ambiance and electronic influences with math-rock twinkling, creating tracks that brim with warmth, entertaining dynamics and strength. Through eclectic and meticulous songwriting, they’ve crafted a distinctive sound that guarantees exhilarating and uplifting experience. Their new self-titled EP brings adventurous soundscpaes built on mostly electronic filled foundation, with airy and atmospheric vibes, created thanks to the use of different synths, drum machines, reverbs, and loopers. The record just landed online and it’s our pleasure to give you its full presentation, along with the band’s commentary and track by track breakdown below.
Basically after ’True North’ (our 2018 LP) I think we felt the time had come for a change. That LP was kind of all over the place — it was a combination of math rock, post-hardcore, some proggy and funky stuff and so on but at the same time it felt a bit stagnant I think. So we started looking for a fresh start. It lead us to this little EP.
Dima: I think this is the best WE release so far. Every note is in its place and has a meaning. These songs are not only melodic, inspiring and so on — now they’re smart and I really like it.
All the inspiration is here — in January we nearly had a nuclear war, in February Australia burned, March and April can be easily called the virus times. in our new EP lots of music and lyrics fit the present things pretty well.
Alex: When someone comes up with ‘It’s the best album we’ve ever made, super proud of it’, you can easily tell it’s absolute trash. Fortunately, I don’t think so — we did our best one back in 2014. At the end of the day the current one feels pretty short but lovely (that’s what she said).
Eldar: I don’t know whether it is our best release or not but I hope it’s different. We changed our approach to the music, there’s almost no heavy guitars and distortions but it’s full of synths, reverbs, loops and other atmospheric stuff. The most important part is that we started singing on this one. I’m pretty stoked although very anxious about it — singing in front of people is one of my biggest fears in life.
The artwork photo was shot by our friend Andrey Minakov.
Eldar: He’s a super talented photographer who sees stuff like no one else does. We’ve been fans of his work for a long time and it was super cool of him to let us use it.
Our another friend Boris Kuznetsov made the design. It’s not the first time he does something for us and we’re always happy.
Track-by-track
Шторм (Storm)
Alex: To me it has the most decent bass line in band’s history. The lyrics are pretty cringe and I still can’t get used to it. Also I barely remember how to play any of my guitar or synth lines from this track except the lick I stole from Isis (the band). Boy do I care.
Eldar: I don’t think that the lyrics are cringe or something. Although I’m very far from being a great lyricist for sure. Basically this track is about changes and not looking back. Like pretty often we all get stuck in our nostalgia and forget about moving on with our lives and stuff like this. We’ve all been there.
Спи (Sleep)
Eldar: So I sometimes have this condition, it’s called sleep paralysis. It is the state when, while you’re asleep, your brain wakes up and your body doesn’t. So you lay in your bed paralyzed for several minutes. And the thing is that you hallucinate at that time — you see things that aren’t there, hear voices and stuff like that. You feel some strange presence standing above your bed. So basically it is the source of many ghost stories, it has lots of history in different cultures. It is intense and scary but at the same time is super interesting like ‘is it for real?’. Maybe it’s an another dimension or an astral plane or something. Look it up, it’s pretty cool. Also that is the only track in English with some Russian words here and there.
Alex: Synths are fucking massive here. Should’ve been a Stranger Things theme in an ideal world we’ll never encounter again. What makes me really proud here is the fact that I’ve poured those ridiculously made-up-nonsense-three-note-licks all over the capo-based badassery which no one will ever remember. Bold move.
Хватит (Enough)
Alex: Thanks to me it has VIBE, because that pitched guitar line was stolen from the actual Foals, I guess. But, I wasn’t even capable of playing it the right way. We figured it out on the post production.
Eldar: We wanted this track to feel dancy and groovy. Even the working title for this one was ’TECHNO’ so it’s all about the rhythm. The vocals were done by our bass player Nikita using his vocal processor. The only piece of lyrics here is ‘Хватит’ (Russian for ‘enough’) and it can mean a lot of things. Enough is enough you know.
Домой (Home)
Eldar: So this one was the first track done for this record and it was an instrumental piece for a long time. It is massive with a huge ending crescendo and stuff. The main riff has this cool American Football midwest vibe.
Lyrically it is about the protests in Moscow last summer. At the time it felt like everything sucks and there is no way out so the lyrics are kinda hopeful like ‘okay, it is bad now but it is not forever, one day it will end and everything is going to be better’. Man we couldn’t know what’s going to happen 6 months later when we’re all be locked up at home battling the disease. I think that the lyrics fit the situation now pretty good — one day it’s all going to end and we’ll be back to our lives.
Alex: Simply the best singalongs ever recorded. Hate the acoustics though. I did actually drop some sick ass screams in a very single take manner in the end, which I guess took forever to tune on the post later. Also it took ages to memorize that synth bass line, which I’m very proud of. It drives the whole thing home.
Track 5 (not on the record)
Alex: My parts were 100% stolen from the actual Tigers Jaw band. You have to trust me it was really good back then. Unfortunately, we had to get rid of this one.
Plans for 2020
Dima: It’ll be very nice to finally come to my hometown and play at Netramplin — this is a local festival on a beach on Volga river. Also I have two more projects here to be recorded, one is avangarde-metal Mars Volta kind of a thing, second would be a crust-punk-suite. If everything is going well, 2020 will definitely be my ‘release’-year.
Alex: SURVIVE
Eldar: Yeah, basically all the plans are on hold now until the situation gets better. We might do some online live recordings or some stuff like that.
Moscow local alt music scene & COVID-19 situation
Eldar: To be honest I don’t really follow music scene here very thorough but I can say that it’s pretty good now — lots of cool artists and music for everyone. At least it was like this before this shitstorm started.
Eldar: As I said before everything is frozen for now. The only activities are online shows and online live sessions and stuff like that. I’m not sure it can make up for the real live shows. So we all wait how things turn out.
Dima: To be honest I do like what is happening. Almost all the rock bands were already dead or slowly dying, there’s pretty much no interest in any content the bands make. Covid with its isolation, quarantine and other impacts is the final nail to a coffin. And let it be so because history is based on a spiral and now its time put the layer up.
Alex: A WISE MAN ONCE SAID WE’RE ALL DEAD FUCK IT
Other bands worth a check
Alex:
OLD MAN GLOOM — Seminar IX: The Darkness of Being
Arbouretum — Let It All In
And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead — X: The Godless Void and Other Stories
Waxahatchee — Saint Cloud
Dima:
Gotanda — Currently working on a new LP, the first EP is out – definitely the thing to look on and to listen to.
