Lazyeyes
hazy vibes
melody drives
like a Cadillac on the beach
of your mind.
That’s a poem I just wrote as an ode to Brooklyn-based dream pop band Lazyeyes. Would anybody ever care about reading live show reviews written entirely as silly poems? Would that be lazy journalism? I’ll just let that dippy ditty be a one-off for now, because it’s mostly Lazyeyes’ fault for making me feel like I just got my eyelids burned from laying on the beach all day because I don’t have a real job. Maybe that’s more wishful thinking, since right about now that does sound like a good idea, but alas there were no harmful UV rays involved when I saw Lazyeyes play at Cake Shop. Maybe the dim, warm-toned light in the low basement ceiling space was part of it too, or maybe it was all in the shoegaze wooziness of their songs that all have a mood of being “reminiscent of nostalgic memories of out of body experiences, and hazy summer days,” as front man Jason Abrishami has said.
It’s true that he and drummer Jeremy Sampson, bassist Paul Volpe, and guitarist Renan McFarland have created songs, like “Nostalgia” and “Daydream,” that have the effect of a palm tree over your head on a hot, breezy day, while getting a gentle massage with a glass of wine with a extra side of reverb. So much reverb, that I may actually still be feeling the effects of their set. None of the members of the band actually have lazy eyes, to my knowledge, but if I had had more clarity to look around me, I probably would have seen plenty of glazed over expressions of people staring at the stage. There’s no way I was the only one.
The show wasn’t really about watching them play anyway, although they were all smoothly locked into other musically, and looked cool bobbing in the shadows of the space. It was more about this cloudy ambiance they created, like the faux nostalgia that’s so popular right now, but actually sounding legit and believable. By the time they got to their strongest single, “Wait” towards the end of their set, I had already planned my next beach trip, complete with this song on the summer holiday playlist. And speaking of summer, word is the band is soon recording a second EP, to be released by then.
In the meantime, Lazyeyes have shows coming up in April around Brooklyn, at Glasslands and Cameo Gallery, All shows listed on their Facebook page. More sounds playable on their Bandcamp.
