ARTIST: National Eye
TITLE: Roomful of Lions
LABEL: Park the Van Records
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 198kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 52m total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-02-14
RIP DATE: 2006-02-25
Track List
----------
1. Ag1 3:05
2. Juno3 4:50
3. Bird & Sword 3:22
4. Silveragers 5:27
5. Lights 2:10
6. Halo 3:43
7. Theft 2:22
8. Invisible Raincoat 2:48
9. Drowned In Bed 3:53
10. Left Out of Dynamite 3:55
11. Abwlehr 2:38
12. The Switch 2:03
13. Waves Of Love 3:09
14. Casimir 4:47
15. Ag2 4:26
Release Notes:
http://www.nationaleye.com/
http://www.parkthevan.com
In this bio, you will learn some helpful facts about Philadelphia music group
NATIONAL EYE. Of course, the only really important thing to know is that it's
five guys (Will Baggott, Gianmarco Cilli, Doug Kirby, Rick Flom and Jeff Love)
pulling music from out of themselves that seeks to describe and deepen the
Mystery Of Life (which is really a murder mystery, since everybody dies).
That's the short of it, and here's the long:
They met at school in Colorado in the LATE NINETIES where they basically learned
to play music with and from one another. Many recordings were made --
hiss-soaked, hobbling mood-bursts that provided the framework for what they
would eventually do when National Eye began nebulously taking shape several
years later. After college, they packed up for Philadelphia to continue to make
music together. It took a few years, but eventually they began to unwittingly
forge a method and a style that would take full advantage of the members'
disparate tastes and abilities. Five guys met at the center of the Eye -- and
recorded a bunch of great songs.
The result of these endeavors, The Meter Glows appeared in 2003 -- which is
essentially the birth of the band caught on tape, in the sense that before these
songs started to coalesce in their headphone universe, there was no "National
Eye" (strictly speaking). The album contained 13 tracks of a startling variety,
but all with a pathological devotion to sonic texture and emotional impact. New
York label Feel Records recognized its power (or its weirdness) (or its vast
commercial potential) and released the album, despite the band's utter lack of
live experience or reputation. Good move.
Now that there was this document (The Meter Glows), the band set out into the
world and began attempting to present the album's loping aural alleys on the
stages of Philadelphia's lovely rock venues. As they were figuring this out,
they met some truly momentous musicians who had very much in common with our
National Eye -- despite the fact that none of them sounded anything like
National Eye (or each other). But what the band found in those early, heady
days was something they'd never really felt before -- a calibrated explosion of
bands and artists who saw what the Eye was doing, supported it, and were trying
to do something just as great. This is an important part of the National Eye
story if only because of the band's spirit of ego-less collaboration (who's the
FRONT MAN? they're routinely asked) and they thrive on a sense of constant
creative activity among diverse weirdos.
The band played and toured and strove and struggled and meanwhile started
recording another album, again at home (though mostly in a different home).
When they finished tracking, they once again took the album to genius Thom
Monahan (Pernice Brothers, Silver Jews, Devendra Banhart) for mixing. Just as
he had done on The Meter Glows, he took the beautiful mess of the raw Eye, broke
it down and built it up again to make it a beautiful non-mess. Or a less messy
mess. The point is, the guy's contribution is hugely significant.
This brings us to National Eye's ambitious second album, Roomful of Lions: a
cathedral of color noise & conversation -- fractured human history mixed with
fractured human relations. Where Meter was dense, Lions is expansive, providing
a grander sonic architecture for the band's songs -- themselves offering a more
nuanced and ambiguous moral universe.
Subjects range from a mutinous Nazi plot to assassinate Hitler ("Abwehr"), a
15th Century saint ("Casimir"), Marvel comics ("Silver Agers"), and a childhood
bully ("Lights"). No matter how far out they go, the songs are of a piece and
describe a world not too dissimilar to our own, full of passion and death and
birds and thieves and love and "men who casino."