Album Review: The Lazy Eyes - 'SongBook'

Already garnering rave reviews in their native Australia for a series of EPs, Sydney quartet The Lazy Eyes even have their own music festival, Lazyfest. Debut album SongBook sees the quartet, three of whom have been friends since their schooldays, reveal their sprawling brand of ’60s-inspired psychedelic pop/rock to the rest of the world.

Drawing inspiration from the likes of The Byrds and The Beatles, particularly on the swoonsome pop of ‘Starting Over’ and ‘Nobody Taught Me’, The Lazy Eyes occasionally veer into territory occupied by more modern purveyors of psychedelia, The Flaming Lips and fellow antipodeans Tame Impala. The stomping, mesmerising crescendo of ‘The Seaside’, meanwhile, is not unlike The War On Drugs at their most transcendent.

There are time-changes galore, from the pleasing chug-a-lug blues-rock shuffle of ‘The Island’, to the hypnotic instrumental ‘Hippo’. ‘Fuzz Jam’ veers from shimmering prog to toe-tappingly infectious and back again, via a detour down some weird side-roads. It can all get a little dreamy at times, but the insistent ‘Where’s My Brain?’ is anything but background music, particularly the frenetic guitar solo.

An interesting, and quietly absorbing, debut.

Listen: ‘Where’s My Brain?’
Score: 8/10