Waking Eyes - Combing The Clouds

  by Geraint Jones

published: 12 / 3 / 2002

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The Waking Eyes were formed from the ashes of Canadian psychedelic power pop combo, the Pets, who received very good reviews for their only album, ‘Love And War’, but had actually already spilt up by the time the album was made available in Britain a couple of years back. While ‘Love And War’ has been on my wants list all this time, I’ve never actually got around to picking up a copy. The arrival of ‘Combing The Clouds’ has given me a good idea of what I’ve missed. Reading through the press release and past notes I have on the Pets it doesn’t seem as if the two bands have diverged very far stylistically, which is just fine. Carrying over both Matt Peters and Myron Schutz from the Pets, The Waking Hours are ostensibly a trio augmented by the addition of Rusty Matyas who between them handle all the songwriting. The material, however, is given more substance by an array of additional musicians who contribute brass, woodwind and strings as well as a pair of drummers, including another former Pet, Stephen Senkiw. Drawing on a multitude of influences ‘Combing The Clouds’ is a very promising and enjoyable debut. Luscious string-drenched pop, whimsical psychedelia, wigged-out organ-driven garage rock, blues, pomp rock and some wonderful vocal harmonies. Imagine if you will, Steely Dan, Mark & the Mysterians, Queen, the Beach Boys, the Beatles and the Kinks combined with a little Guided By Voices style off-kilter eclecticism and that provides a possible guide to what you can expect. Music, however, is rarely that simple to pigeonhole and to others a completely different set of reference points might be detected. Whatever the influences may be though, detectable or otherwise, ‘Combing The Clouds’ is a very rewarding and diverse listen, as well as a lot of fun. Hopefully the Waking Eyes can remain intact beyond the release of this debut.

Track Listing:-

1 Combs For The Clouds
2 Everything Is Easy
3 Anytime
4 Castle By The Bay
5 Gone With A Glance
6 Definitely Elwood
7 New rising Sun
8 The World Its Alive
9 Tergo Velum
10 Make A Sound
11 Sunday Morning Blues
12 Forget About All The Rest

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