[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD6mS4WXUlc[/youtube]
“Eyedrops” is the product of a forlorn and angular guitar riff, a footing that grows around the band’s own contradictory sound. It’s a smart, mathy beginning that calls for a light drizzle and is confused when it finds its neighbors to be the sprightly chime of William Kennedy’s glockenspiel and the reedy caterwauling of Addison Adams, a criss-crossing overlay of melodies, impartial to the development of the others.
It’s endearing to see the honesty of presenting the apathetic, cynical repetition of “day in, day out” with twinkling, bubble-gum pop lingering in the background. Straightforward in the same way Adams delivers his idiosyncratic vocals. It’s a translation that masters piecing together a movement from a bored resignation to a bitter anguish.
It’s still a demo according to the band’s Bandcamp page, so check out my pick as the definitive version of the song above, a recording from the band’s Live in the Lobby session earlier this year. A lovely show I just happen to curate and am most certainly not biased towards.
-Will Guerin