Welcome to the meandering musical insights of Aaron Joy (me!), formerly known as the Roman Midnight Music Blog. Here you'll find nearly 750 reviews of CDs & DVDs of rock & metal in all its variations, mainstream & indie, good & bad, U.S. & foreign. A new review every Monday.

Please share these reviews & feel free to copy them to your website or link to them. No downloads to be found here.

Are you a musician with an album?? Please e-mail me (aronmatyas @ hotmail.com) your album, EPK, etc. Or, hit me up for a physical address (I'm in Portland, Maine). If you don't have an EPK, I have a soft spot for personal handwritten letters from the local musician who just plays around town. I'm a bassist & do this blog partly to share music I love & partly to help the little guy, like myself, just looking for some attention. Promo companies are always welcomed to reach out.

You can support this blog by buying my books via amazon, or your local bookseller, or seeing my website www.aaronjoyauthor.weebly.com.

March 9, 2010

Eye Of The Dawn ~ Eye Of The Dawn (aka debut) (album review) ... Meet your vampire, baby!


Style: hard rock, jam, alt rock
Label: Nuyawk Songs Inc.
Year: 2009
Home: New York City

Members: John "Sully" Sullivan ~ lead guitars/vocals
Craig Gottlieb ~ bass
Marcello Pantano ~ drums

 

 

It's easy to search the world for a great band...almost too easy these days...but in doing so we forget to turn to our own backyard, which for me is Brooklyn since I live in Manhattan. I look at the schedule for Madison Square Garden for a famous band on tour, but ignore the local bands roughing in local grimy clubs...even though as a rock bassist I've played in some of these local clubs, even including some this particular band has played in & know the future Madison Square headliners are in these clubs. Often the best response to a gig has been a compliment from a a stranger in the crowd. Friends always tell you good things. Strangers are actually paying attention. I regularly tell myself I really should get to more local clubs & be one of those strangers in the crowd. Hearing a band like EOTD I'm reminded of this unfulfilled New Year's resolution. Every band has both strong & weak points. Even Led Zeppelin or the Beatles. But, I'll confess to having a bias to a band with good lyrics & give them a few bonus points. Anyone can learn to play guitar, but you can't learn how to write great lyrics, no matter how many books from Barnes & Nobles you buy that'll tell you differently for $19.95. Lyrics are also often what differentiates one band from sounding like another & good lyrics can do wonders for an okay band of okay musicians with okay arrangements. If you have a band struggling for good lyrics...your search is over - hire the songwriter behind this band. Fun lines like "I'm your vampire baby/ You only see me in the dark/I'm your vampire baby/Come drive a spike through my heart" from "Vampire" or "until the walls come down/we're going underground" from "Underground" immediately hit your ear with their creativity. The lyrics are topically creative, let alone visually interesting in a way I haven't heard since I last listened to Morrissey. Let alone that the lyrics are sung between two different singers - two singers are always good in a band - laid against a bed of shifting rhythms & melodies that constantly bring musical surprises. & the songs are full of breathing room that not just highlights the lyrics but also the different instruments. Breathing in music is often the first thing forgotten in an arrangement & the first to be missed. Just the other night I was thinking I needed to listen to some music that was not all fierce walls of sound. I needed something with more emotion & more influences in it's musical range than just metal. Eye Of The Dawn is a good solution to my audio numbness. Creativity at it's best.  

5 comments:

  1. I love this album & listen to it all the time! You mention how much you love the writing and I agree. The music and lyrics were actually composed by the lead singer/guitarist, John Sully Sullivan.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the response! Yes, this was an find through a recommendation - ah, the value of recommendations!! I try not to do any research about the band or know anything about what has been said about them or their works when I write, so thanks for filling in the gaps on who the credit goes to. I try to just listen and write! I may meander in my words but if I'm meandering that means the music is doing something good to the head!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love these guys. Glad you picked up on the arrangement and the visual flavor of the lyrics. Sully and the band are amazing artists.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I probably could have written more, but didn't want to overdose. haha. And, good guys to correspond with too! Looking forward to seeing them in concert someday!

    ReplyDelete