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The Heavy Eyes to Tour Europe This Fall; Playing Fests and More

Posted in Whathaveyou on August 8th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

the heavy eyes

In case you’d like a concise summary of Europe’s October festival season — not entirely complete, but not far off — Memphis rockers The Heavy Eyes have made a convenient list for your perusal that also just happens to be the routing for their upcoming tour. They go, at last, in support of 2020’s Love Like Machines (review here), and like so much else this year, their run happens now after being delayed for two years owing to the pandemic. Glad they finally get to go.

When the tour got postponed the first time, the band said they were recording new music, and just because there hasn’t been a release doesn’t necessarily mean that it didn’t happen. In any case, Love Like Machines was a record that they intended to support, that sounded like it was ready for the support, so as they swing through Up in SmokeFuzztival in Denmark, Setalight Festival, Keep it LowFreakOut Fest and Desertfest Belgium in Antwerp, their arrival should be duly anticipated.

They’ve got club shows besides, and that’s great too, but the point here is basically that they’re going and that’s a good thing. Slowly the world gets itself back together, just in time for who the hell knows what winter will bring.

Dates follow:

the-heavy-eyes-euro-tour-2022-poster

The Heavy Eyes – Euro Tour 2022

The Heavy Eyes are set to cross the pond this October and finally embark on their twice-delayed EU tour from 2020. With the release of Love Like Machines in April of ’20, they were eager to hit the road that fall, but as we all know things didn’t go as planned. Now, two years later, they’re set to play Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Denmark on their two-week tour. Dates below.

-1.10 Paris, FR FR L’International
-2.10 Basel, CH Up In Smoke Festival
-3.10 Köln, DE MTC
-5.10 Copenhagen, DK Fuzztival
-6.10 Osnabrück, DE Bastard Club
-7.10 Berlin, DE Setalight Festival
-8.10 Munich, DE Keep It Low Festival
-10.10 Chambéry, FR Brin du Zinc
-11.10 Bologna, IT FreakOut Fest
-13.10 Reigniers, FR Le Poulpe
-14.10 Belgium, BE Desert Fest

THE HEAVY EYES are:
Tripp Shumake
Wally Anderson
Matt Qualls
Eric Garcia

http://www.facebook.com/TheHeavyEyes
http://www.instagram.com/theheavyeyes
http://theheavyeyesmemphis.bandcamp.com

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The Heavy Eyes, Love Like Machines (2020)

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The Heavy Eyes to Record New Music; Tours Postponed

Posted in Whathaveyou on July 17th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

2020 has shit a lot of beds, but let us spare a moment’s sympathy for Memphis four-piece The Heavy Eyes, who spent half a decade making Love Like Machines (review here) the air-tight example of heavy rock songcraft done right that it became, only to release it on March 27 as the black hole was just opening wide to swallow everyone’s ambitions for the rest of the year. They’ll go back into the studio and make another recording, which presumably will also be released on Kozmik Artifactz at some point between now and then, and hopefully be able to fulfill what was to be their first European tour dates at a future time. Again, 2020 has been a bummer for many of us on many levels, but a band about to take off for a European tour supporting a killer record, really about to build some momentum behind them on a different level than they were before? Yeah, that’s a hard one to take.

The PR wire did its best to sound a hopeful note:

the heavy eyes

Heavy Psych Rockers THE HEAVY EYES Postpone European Tour | Enter Studio to Record New Material for 2021

Listen and order your copy of Love Like Machines by The Heavy Eyes here – https://theheavyeyesmemphis.bandcamp.com

In what was billed to be a stellar year for the US quartet; Memphis’ meanest psych band The Heavy Eyes have been forced to pull all dates on their 2020 European Tour due to increasing concerns around the COVID-19 outbreak.

In late March, just as the virus was beginning to take hold across the continent, the band released their first collection of new material in over five years with the brilliant and bold, Love Like Machines. A long overdue delivery of heady jams, big riffs and Southern soul the album sang of doomed armies, lost loves, meddling Wolfmen and in short, whet many a fan’s proverbial whistle for some much-needed beers and live music in cities where the band are both loved and lauded in equal measure.

“It is with great disappointment that we’ve had to postpone all of our live shows,” explains drummer, Eric Garcia. “But we’re doing our part to combat the virus and eventually, when it’s safe, we can’t wait to come back and perform. For now though, it make sense to pivot and use our time to record even more music this fall. We’re unsure if that’ll mean a full LP or an EP, but we’ve actively been sharing ideas and keen to create more music.”

While the prospect of hearing more new music from the band is an exciting one, be assured that The Heavy Eyes and their booking agents are currently in the process of rescheduling a new run of dates for next year.

THE HEAVY EYES are:
Tripp Shumake
Wally Anderson
Matt Qualls
Eric Garcia

http://www.facebook.com/TheHeavyEyes
http://www.instagram.com/theheavyeyes
http://theheavyeyesmemphis.bandcamp.com
http://kozmik-artifactz.com/
https://www.facebook.com/kozmikartifactz

The Heavy Eyes, Love Like Machines (2020)

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Days of Rona: Tripp Shumake of The Heavy Eyes

Posted in Features on April 29th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.

Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.

Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan

the heavy eyes tripp shumake

Days of Rona: Tripp Shumake of The Heavy Eyes (Memphis, Tennessee)

How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?

Like much of the world, we’re taking it day by day. We’re fortunate that everyone is in good health, but with my medical condition I am at a higher risk and is top of mind for us all as we plan touring this year. Unfortunately our two US dates this year were canceled, but Stoned & Dusted has rescheduled for next year so we’re hoping to be out there in 2021. Regarding our EU tour this October, we are still booking dates and are hopeful this will come to fruition.

What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?

All major cities in Tennessee have ordered their residents to stay at home as well as the entire state of Colorado (where Eric resides). We’re allowed to be out to get essentials and exercise, but strongly advised to avoid gathering in groups.

How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?

The streets are much less populated and people are obviously panic-buying everything at the grocery. Bars and venues are closed so all live music is at a standstill. Fortunately, we’ve seen different initiatives such as Bandcamp waiving artist fees for 24 hours to Spotify working to add a fundraising feature tied to artist profiles.

What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?

We’re all healthy at the moment. Personally, we hope people are taking this seriously and understand that while you may not be at risk, those that are immunocompromised are.

http://www.facebook.com/TheHeavyEyes
http://www.instagram.com/theheavyeyes
http://theheavyeyesmemphis.bandcamp.com
http://kozmik-artifactz.com/
https://www.facebook.com/kozmikartifactz

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Review & Track Premiere: The Heavy Eyes, Love Like Machines

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on February 20th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

The Heavy Eyes Love Like Machines

[Click play above to stream ‘Late Night’ from The Heavy Eyes’ Love Like Machines, out March 27 on Kozmik Artifactz. Preorders available here.]

It’s been quite a first decade for the ostensibly Memphis-based four-piece The Heavy Eyes, whose members actually reside at this point in different states and who careen through the riffs of their fourth long-player, Love Like Machines, with a sans-chicanery fluidity that totally undercuts that distance. By the time they got around to their last album, 2015’s He Dreams of Lions (review here), the then-trio had refined their approach to a remarkable degree, building off the methods and the successes of 2012’s Maera and 2011’s Heavy Eyes, as well as concurrent EPs and other short digital offerings, had toured to support their work and, crucially, had found an audience hungry for more.

And though they took part in Magnetic Eye Records‘ tribute to Jimi Hendrix (review here), also in 2015, and issued Live in Memphis (review here) in 2018, there’s no question that the five-year break between their third and fourth full-lengths changes the context in which Love Like Machines arrives. But fair enough. The band itself has also changed, bringing in longtime engineer Matthew Qualls — who has helmed each of their albums, including this one — on guitar and backing vocals as a fourth full-time member of the band alongside vocalist/guitarist Tripp Shumake, bassist Wally Anderson and drummer Eric Garcia, and recommitting themselves to the prospect of recording and touring as The Heavy Eyes.

Their sonic identity remains based around their songwriting, and though Qualls and Garcia both add percussion here and there, Shumake blends acoustic and electric guitar on opener “Anabasis,” and the later pair of “Bright Light” and the especially catchy fuzzer “A Cat Named Haku” dig into highlight low end and drum compression, the overarching impression Love Like Machines makes — the album’s title line delivered in side A’s “Late Night” — is one that can’t help but be considered straightforward with such a focus on structure and such tightness of their performance. The grooves swing and aren’t shy about it, and Shumake‘s vocals and Southern-tinged lyrical patterns can call to mind ClutchAll Them Witches and Valley of the Sun at any given moment — and that’s before you get to the hyper-Queens of the Stone Age vibes of the penultimate “Vera Cruz” (with guest piano by Carmen Fowlkes) — but if The Heavy Eyes are sending a message in this sharp-dressed 10-track/34-minute outing, it’s that they’re getting down to business.

I don’t know whether they’re feeling the weight of the five years it’s taken to manifest their fourth album or what, but beneath the right-on fuzz in the guitars, the good-times hooks of “Made for the Age” and “The Profession,” and the half-intro purpose “Anabasis” serves with its acoustic/electric blend, there’s a strong sense of purpose behind the songs on Love Like Machines, and an audience engagement that comes across as being as far from coincidental as you can get. These songs, written in parts exchanged digitally over state lines and recorded in more than one session with Qualls and guest guitar appearances from Justin Toland of Dirty Streets on “God Damn Wolf Man” and Justin Tracy, who also appeared on Live in Memphis, on “The Profession.”

the heavy eyes

The latter is of particular note as regards the idea of purpose in what The Heavy Eyes are doing on Love Like Machines, since the profession in question — at least somewhat contrary to where one’s mind might go in associating the title — is rock and roll itself, and that song is nothing if not an example of the band’s pro-shop presentation, crisp and assured in its delivery and interesting to the ear without a hint of indulgence on the part of its creators. Even “Hand of Bear,” which might earn a sideways glance for a verse line like, “Copper-color skin, so you’d best beware,” in recounting a story on a Native American theme, is maddeningly catchy — “Whoa, yeah yeah/Guess he earned his name as the Hand of Bear” becomes a signature hook, backing vocals and all.

It is not necessarily a revolutionary approach that The Heavy Eyes are taking, but neither are they directing themselves to the tenets of genre, instead shaping these to suit the needs of their songwriting. Craft is primary. “Made for the Age” is the longest inclusion at 4:51, and no other song on Love Like Machines even touches four minutes (“Vera Cruz” lists at 3:59), with “Late Night,” “God Damn Wolf Man” and “The Profession” under three. Yet none of these songs or the closer “Idle Hands” at 3:09 lack character or identity.

They are deceptively rich in their mix and able to shift in meter from one to the next while maintaining an overarching flow to the whole that gives the finale a due feeling of spaciousness after the departure of very-Cali departure of “Vera Cruz” and the standout choruses in “The Profession” and “A Cat Named Haku” earlier, and the deeper one digs into the proceedings, the more nuance one is likely to find even in songs that seem so straightforward in their initial purpose. Ultimately, questions of whether or not The Heavy Eyes will be able to gain back some of the momentum that the stretch since He Dreams of Lions may have taken away are secondary.

What matters here, as Love Like Machines expresses so plainly, are the songs themselves and the energy the band have put into constructing and recording them. They leave no question as to who they are as a band or what they want to be doing, and with a decade behind them, they stand mature in their approach but still hungry-seeming, still reaching out to the crowd in front of an imagined stage, still inviting everyone to take a step forward. It would be a hard invite to refuse, frankly, and if one thinks of Love Like Machines as a live set, then it’s pretty clear The Heavy Eyes put on a hell of a show. They’re doing their part here. It’s up to the listener now to get on board, but The Heavy Eyes have only made it as easy and as appealing as possible to do so. That’s all they can do. Well, that and tour like bastards.

The Heavy Eyes on Thee Facebooks

The Heavy Eyes on Instagram

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The Heavy Eyes Announce March 27 Release for Love Like Machines

Posted in Whathaveyou on January 28th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

the heavy eyes

Note that there would be a big, big difference if Memphis heavy rockers The Heavy Eyes had titled their impending LP — which is called Love Like Machines and out March 27 on Kozmik Artifactz — with the first and second words reversed. It’s a more than fine line between “love like machines” and “like love machines.” Kudos to the four-piece for coming down on the correct side of that line.

It raised an eyebrow when The Heavy Eyes were among the first announcements for Keep it Low 2020 that there were clearly stirrings from the band and more in the works. First of all, that’s a Sound of Liberation fest, which means it’s probably not the only one they’ll play — Up in Smoke and Desertfest Belgium are both possibilities, and of course surrounding tour dates the amount of which depends on how long they’ll be over there. Second, if they’re going to make the trip, well, their last release was the 2018 live album, Live in Memphis (review here), and that was cool, but it’s not really an occasion two years later for a European tour. Their last studio outing was 2015’s He Dreams of Lions (review here), so between those factors, yeah, a new studio LP didn’t seem like an unreasonable expectation either.

If you wonder why I post every fest announcement that comes my way, it’s because CONTEXT.

So here we are, with Love Like Machines coming out in March. The PR wire has album details and there’s a song streaming at the bottom of this post:

the heavy eyes love machines

THE HEAVY EYES: Memphis Psychedelic Blues Rock Unit To Release Love Like Machines Full-Length March 27th Via Kozmik Artifactz; New Track Streaming + Preorders Available

Memphis-based psychedelic blues rock veterans, THE HEAVY EYES, will release their long-awaited new full-length, Love Like Machines, March 27th via Kozmik Artifactz.

Their fourth full-length and first new offering since 2015’s critically lauded He Dreams Of Lions, THE HEAVY EYES continues to deliver their fuzzed out, bluesy, hypnotic riffs, this time with the addition of long-time recording engineer, Matthew Qualls, as second guitarist. Adding a new layer of depth to their groove, Qualls — who’s worked side-by-side with THE HEAVY EYES for many years and has performed with them live in the past — enabled the band to collaborate in a different way exploring new song structures, tones, and attaining a bigger sound overall without stripping any of the grittiness and love of ’60s and ’70s rock that has shaped their sound since inception.

Despite the rabid reception of their first three albums however, Love Like Machines almost never existed. In 2017, the band was put on pause, with each member living in a different state. Spread across the Southwest and Midwest, there were new jobs, new cities, a marriage, and even a kidney disease diagnosis. In short, there was every indication that the pause might become permanent. But by 2019, THE HEAVY EYES had found a second wind and was actively working on new material, exchanging beats, licks, and lyrics long-distance. After two bouts of recording, the record is here, five years in the making.

The ten-track Love Like Machines was produced by Qualls in New Mexico and Memphis and comes shrouded in the kaleidoscopic cover art of Emil Orth.

Love Like Machines will by released digitally by the band with Kozmik Artifactz handling the vinyl edition this spring. In advance of its release, the band is pleased to unveil first album teaser “The Profession.” From the opening roll of the drums to the rip-roaring fuzz of the chorus, THE HEAVY EYES delivers a walloping testament to their take-no-prisoners ethos.

Find Love Like Machines digital preorders at THIS LOCATION where “The Profession” can be streamed.

Love Like Machines Track Listing:
1. Anabasis
2. Made For The Age
3. Hand Of Bear
4. Late Night
5. God Damn Wolf Man
6. Bright Light
7. A Cat Named Haku
8. The Profession
9. Vera Cruz
10. Idle Hands

THE HEAVY EYES is currently booking a European tour for early October 2020 and will appear at Keep It Low Festival in München, Germany with more dates to be announced in the weeks to come.

THE HEAVY EYES Live:
10/09-10/2020 Keep It Low Festival – München, DE

THE HEAVY EYES:
Tripp Shumake – lead vocals, acoustic/electric guitar
Matthew Qualls – electric guitar, percussion, backing vocals
Wally Anderson – bass guitar
Eric Garcia – drums/percussion

Guests:
Justin Toland – guitar tracking, solo (“God Damn Wolf Man”)
Justin Tracy – guitar solo (“The Profession”)
Carmen Fowlkes – piano (“Vera Cruz”)

http://www.facebook.com/TheHeavyEyes
http://www.instagram.com/theheavyeyes
http://theheavyeyesmemphis.bandcamp.com
http://kozmik-artifactz.com/
https://www.facebook.com/kozmikartifactz

The Heavy Eyes, Love Like Machines (2020)

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