Eye - Center of the Sun

From the State of Ohio in the City of Columbus, comes a Space Doom Prog Metal quartet who would have been into the Milky Way and travel into different planets with their music and their debut album, Center of the Sun, which is 45-minutes of a tripped out adventure that is terrifying and scary at the same time for me listening to this from beginning to end. Eye is one of the most unbelievable up-and-coming bands that are taking Metal and Space music to boldly go where no listener has gone before.

The 19-minute opening title track is easily one of the most eruptive and volcanic introductions to kick the album off with an explosion. Filling with the mellotron and synths to make it sound atmospheric while rumbling bass and guitar lines that resembles early Floyd and an homage to the Doctor Who theme along with lyrics that could have been inspired by Michael Moorcock and Philip K. Dick’s work, makes the music very evil that it was recorded inside a gothic cathedral where the Stoner Metal heads would come in and be blown away from what they are expecting to hear for a freak-out session.

Usurpers which is roman for “To Seize for Use”, has a crazy experimental hard rock reminiscent of ‘70s bands; Amon Duul II, Ash Ra Tempel, and Black Sabbath’s Sabotage-era with vicious venom rhythm and lead guitar lines, hypnotic vocal lines, jazz fusion drum work and African tribe percussions that are for your enjoyment. Restorers blasts through the door with a crazy bass line and jumpy rhythm guitar chugging beat along that has that weird time signature that goes through various changes that goes from fast into a melodic evil punch. You have to give Eye a lot of credit for doing their homework of listening to these bands of the ‘70s that were known and some were obscure to set the tones on what is beyond the beyond.

The closer, Rik Rite, which could have been a character in the Doctor Who universe, has this combination of the Islands-era King Crimson meets Yes meets Rush with an Egyptian Metal flavor and it has some wonderful soothing keyboard sounds, beautiful fuzz tone bass work, psychedelia thumping guitar work, sounds of the spaceship going for liftoff, and mellowing drum work that makes it a perfect way to end the album off with a bang. There are a lot of up-and-coming bands in the Prog, Doom, and Symphonic Metal universe that are staying true to the ’70s sounds of the genre, and Eye has almost come in full circle with their music. And while they have a long way to go, it’s one small step for man, one giant leap for a band to set the voyages of the music from a galaxy far, far, away.