On Wax: Wild Eyes, Get into It!
Front to back, side to side, a classic mindset pervades Get into It!, the Dec. 2013 Who Can You Trust? Records debut LP from San Francisco heavy rockers Wild Eyes. The four-piece (whose name you might see around as “Wild Eyes SF,” presumably to avoid confusion and/or litigation with another act of the same name) aren’t necessarily retro-sounding in terms of their production, but they rock with a boozy soul and brashness that I don’t think anyone would argue comes from somewhere other than the heavy ’70s, even if their touted influences of Blue Cheer, Tina Turner and Grand Funk Railroad undersell the punkish roots beneath raucous cuts like “Take Me” and “Amnesia.” Sometimes it’s a pretty fine line, but the point is Wild Eyes — vocalist Janiece Gonzalez, guitarist Chris Corona, bassist Carson Binks (also of Saviours) and now-former drummer Jesse Thompson, since replaced by 
Ben Richardson — aren’t just copping Leslie West riffs and calling it a revolution on their first outing.
Rather, the album — pressed to sleek black 180g vinyl in an edition of 500 with a thick, textured-feeling sleeve — gives its swagger a modern presentation thanks to production by Phil Manley that captures the natural bluesy grooves well without coming across too slick, just a hint of ’80s metal bleeding into “1725,” which caps side A following the initial one-two punch of “Get into It!” and “Amnesia,” which boast the strongest hooks here. The three songs on side A are by and large catchier than the four on side B — “Demons Out,” the Tony Joe White cover “Groupy Girl,” “Warrior Cry” and closer “Take Me” — but though it’s very much a B-side, the second half of Get into It! leaves an impression more complex in its mood than “Get into It!” and “Amnesia,” which delight in chemical revelry of various sorts, drinking, smoking, whathaveyou. Fun. Loud, piss-drunk fun. You can almost hear Gonzalez calling you “dude” in the chorus of “Get into It!,” and that vibe works much to the record’s advantage.
For all her tales of waking up with strangers and getting smashed for the hell of it, Gonzalez is a top notch vocalist and has a considerable presence even on record as the frontwoman of the band. Binks and Thompson hold down loose-swinging burrow-into-your-head grooves to go with Corona’s riffing and soloing — “Demons Out” is just waiting to fuck you up — but it’s Gonzalez who handles the emotional crux of the record, and as she tops acoustic guitar with a thoughtful take toying with generational and gender perceptions in “Groupy Girl,” it results in a deepening of the album’s overarching affect. Though they switch up the arrangement some, that song blends more or less seamlessly with Wild Eyes‘ general modus, and the closing duo of “Warrior Cry” and “Take Me” bring back some of the lively push 
of Get into It!‘s beginnings, sounding all the more soulful for the movement into and through “Groupy Girl,” which was likely the idea the whole time.
Corona is apt to rip into a killer lead, and Binks is apt to rise to the occasion in tossing in a bluesy fill, and while the song structures are more or less straightforward, there remains an element of danger in Wild Eyes‘ approach that gives the tracks a fresh feeling despite being so purposefully classic in their intent. It’s a relatively familiar scenario of strong parts coming together as a stronger whole, and though “Take Me” backtracks on some of the agency in “Amnesia” — it’s “Take me/Take me to your place” instead of “I got amnesia/Don’t remember meeting ya” — its blues rocking push makes a fitting end to the album as a whole, basking in proto-heavy push with a sense of realization that comes through all the more on multiple listens. I shudder to think what righteousness might occur should anyone in the band become introduced to the Hammond organ — the humanity! — but even without, Get into It!‘s urging is well heeded.
Hahahahahaha. Okay.