Angular Math-Rock
Listening to Shield Your Eyes' newest album "Volume Four" may be a jarring experience at first. It certainly was for me. And whenever someone compares a band to Thin Lizzy or Black Sabbath (as I laboriously read in the band's press release) I always tend to stand up on my hind legs and scowl with suspicion at the music I'm about to listen to. Thankfully, I was able to jump over the initial math-rock hurdle that exists with any band using such complex rhythmic structures and I seriously warmed up to "Volume Four."
At the risk of sounding sentimental, each song off the album seemed to ring out a mix of joy, sadness and summer tranquillity. That's my take on the album as a whole anyway. Shield Your Eyes insist that they don't like to be lumped in with the rest of the "post hardcore / math-rock scene" but I insist that there is nothing wrong with that at all. If Shield Your Eyes are to be lumped in with the rest of the riff raff, they defiantly rise above the dross. They're doing something different, which at the end of the day is the mark of a good band. "Volume Four" contains a hearty 9 songs which get more and more complex as the album moves on, but somehow still manages to be captivating and memorable.
The album's first song 'Larkspur' kicks like a pissed off mule and in its own angular way sets the tone for the rest of the album. Perhaps it is no surprise at all that 'Larkspur' has become the album's principal track amongst fans and internet reviewers alike. Similarly, the album's penultimate song 'Brno' has a severely catchy quality in its overall structure. For me though, "Volume Four's" real gems are the blues inspired acoustic songs such as 'Schutze Deine Augen', 'Glad' and 'Crowd'. These songs are dotted around the high octane freak-outs of "Volume Four," and even though they are a change in pace, do not seem out of place on the album at all.
Shield Your Eyes - "Volume Four" is available for purchase on CD and Vinyl at the band's website, somewhere I recommend you go straight after finishing this sentence.