There is an ongoing resurgence of many aspects of ‘90s culture. Musically, countless artists seek to surf these nostalgia waves – fighting to stay afloat among competition while hoping to steer listeners into contrasting currents. One hand is gracefully led by sparkling pop proclivities, while the other is tugged at more enthusiastically by the immediacy of slightly more charged rock tendencies. Some succeed at balancing this juxtaposition, few thrive, with Turnstile, thistle., and Glare all serving as examples of the latter. Pennsylvania’s Bleary Eyed easily sit beside these artists – perhaps even with a slight advantage – as their latest album, Easy, is a record that comfortably meshes styles and I just keep going back to it.
Formed a decade ago by Nathaniel Salfi (guitar/vocals), the band’s line-up is now completed by Margot Whipps (bass/vocals), Pax Martyn (guitar), and Charlie Libby Watt (drums). Much of their career so far has been spent experimenting and evolving in their sound – finding the space they as a band wish to occupy (as opposed to corporate whims) and growing there organically without shortcuts or cheap gimmicks. The result is an authentic and thoroughly enjoyable blend of gazey, dream pop/indie rock that is not only endearingly swaddling but dangerously digestible.
Easy is awash with ambience from the opening electronic beat of “Susan” to the close of “Honey”. The sampled snippets that are peppered throughout the album add an intriguing retro-ish modernity to the otherwise punkish roots behind the unique energy that Bleary Eyed use to drive their music. ‘Drive’ is an apt word, really, as many of the songs on Easy are warmly reminiscent of racing game soundtracks in the late ‘90s/early 2000s. Listen to “Susan” and you can easily visualise navigating a semi-realistically rendered race track alongside the song’s palpable energy – pointed yet still somehow casual. The whole album possesses this otherworldly charm that’s difficult to express concisely, but it’s a kind of ‘gazey space grunge’ atmosphere that I don’t think I’ve properly heard (at least not done this effectively) since Cloakroom‘s wonderful Dissolution Wave back in 2022.
Now, I’ve been a fan of high-/low-pitched dual melodies for years, ever since hearing The Hics do it, and do it so damn well. Something about the synchronicity of dissimilar voices elevates a melody in more ways than just the obvious literal doubling of it. In much the same vein, Salphi and Whipps share vocal duties side by side for much of Easy’s runtime, and their distinct voices work fantastically together. They each get their moments, too: Whipps gets a lovely chance to shine on “Everything Everything” as she breathily expresses, ‘No one could write how I convey me/Nothing to see, but everyone’s explaining everything’.
It’s a more simultaneous singing partnership than you’ll hear from the likes of Silversun Pickups, but it also heightens how pronounced the vocals are on each track. Subsequently, the tuneful delivery of their sometimes sombre lyrics carries easily amidst instrumentation that hearkens back to bands like My Vitriol at some points (“Smile”) and Garbage at others (the chorus of the album’s title track is uncanny in style as they sing, ‘Is it something in the water now?/Pull me out from the big crowd/Must be something in the water now’). It’s all part of the way in which Bleary Eyed capitalise tremendously on looking back at the late ’90s grunge/rock of my youth while finding ways to gaze – literally – upward to the stars.
Percussion is particularly intriguing on Easy, combining the mainstay of Watt’s kit work with electronic beats that are filtered and manipulated to contribute to the spacey feeling I spoke of. Electronic flourishes are littered throughout – seated among the more dissonant and distorted instrumentation but nonetheless enriching these rough, rocking soundscapes with a sense of the ethereal. This can take the form of twinkling synths, but also manifests in moments of glitchiness, taking songs like “Jersey Shore” and twisting it from a soothing, acoustic-led number so that instead it seems to fall apart at the seams towards the end.
Salfi and Martyn’s guitar work shifts and warps the path that songs tread. Dips in chords and notes on tracks like “Smile” and “Stars” create a modulating, wavering sensation that enhances the album’s floaty, celestial quality. This simultaneously leaves you sort of dazed and directionless, yet still somehow compelled to forward motion like an inebriated stroll through open fields beneath the night sky. It all comes back to journeys – like that of the band themselves. As such, concepts of physical and emotional momentum, stagnation, and aimlessness (among others) are illustrated in the lyrics themselves: ‘Drive me around/Like downtown/Ash can blow us around/Heart tethered in the ground’ and ‘I, I’m stuck on your memory/Looping endlessly’ serve as prime examples.
For those of you who dig the technicalities, the band also employ healthy use of third chords that supply a tension and that suspenseful pull to the track’s next moments. “Heaven Year” and “Special” epitomise this, drawing the gritty rhythm guitar together with the sturdy and robust bass work that Whipps serves up alongside those glittering vocal melodies. The rambunctious guitar parts lull slightly towards the closing portion of Easy, reclining into more modest pacing. However, songs such as “Stars”, “Honey”, and “2 True” retain the same glowing fervour as their counterparts, filling the speakers with guitar leads that dance around reverberating walls of sound (both digital and organic), imploring you as a listener to do the same.
Easy is a wonderfully infectious fever dream of an album that feels constantly moving yet motionless all at once. Bleary Eyed offer grungey riffs and punchy percussion that sit seamlessly with cathartic synth samples and sweetened vocal melodies, all of which appear impossible to shift from my mind – not that I’m complaining. Ultimately, for all its crunch and cacophony, Easy still glistens and glimmers at you with undeniable appeal that asks so little yet gives so much.
