Trying times call for trying music, or at least music that gets to your soul and stirs you in a way that makes the burdens of life melt away. Less than a week ago, I wrote my review of Posthumanbigbang‘s Jungle Eyes album. It’s great – a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit and mind, where growth still comes from loss and lessons can be mined from our often aimless nature. In dark, there is still light, and so on.
Today, we’re lucky enough to help premiere the album in full. It comes out tomorrow, March 20, via Czar of Crickets, but you’ll appreciate the one-day head start, believe me. It’s pretty dense and distinctive, a quality that’s harder to come by nowadays with progressive metal. Here it is:
It didn’t really strike me until a pandemic invaded the planet just how much Jungle Eyes is about isolation and loneliness. Hearing lyrics of dissolved relationships and emotional scars portrayed by clear weeps and fierce screams alike make for a immensely sensory experience, and it just feels earnest. It’s not here to lie to your face, to tell you that there is only one way to express deep, hard emotions. You can do it in a sorrowful way, with the strength and burning spirit of a wolf, or a calm and accepting manner. Every way is valid.
The title track alone is worth the price of admission. About 30 minutes into the album, you’re treated to a tempestuous journey resembling the thrashing waves of an uncaring ocean, you adrift with your body sprawled out on a floating fixture just big enough to contain your being, but not big enough to spare you the chilling, ravenous energy contained within each droplet of water. The earthy percussion and native tones in the intro of the song – or even the intro of the album with its sitar and accordion on “Cycles” – act as a gateway to other worlds.
“Hate” is callous in nature, as implied by the name, but still has a vulnerable tinge with fractured lyrics sang by a faded voice. Still a favorite, “Driftwood” represents a reservedness not found many other places on the album. It’s an apex of the human saga, marked by a resolute understanding in how things must be. Often that means just going with the flow, as the chorus so intimately illustrates:
‘All I see is driftwood,
let yourself be washed ashore,
only to be consumed again,
and carried somewhere else‘
By their own admission, the Swiss band have made music firmly about ‘coping [with] a crisis in life and pushing through, about native rituals and getting resilient as a human being.’ Looking around, in this time of social distancing, it’s good to have an ally to go through everything with, and music is the best ally I’ve ever known.
Great big (bang) thanks to all involved for allowing us to premiere such a great album. Jungle Eyes comes out tomorrow, Friday, March 20 on Czar of Crickets, which means you can still preorder it on CD through the Plastic Head storefront as well as digitally and on vinyl through Bandcamp. There’s no time like the present to support artists. Also, follow Posthumanbigbang on Facebook!
