“There’s no escape, like Alcatraz,” goes the mesmeric middle section of the opening song on the debut album from Birmingham psych pop duo Solar Eyes. And it’s certainly easy to get sucked in – before you know it you’ve passed the psych-getti Western stylings of ‘Dreaming of the Moon’ and greasy Oasis-isms of album highlight ‘She Kissed the Gun’, dayglo colours streaming past you as you go.
By the time you arrive at the aptly-named halfway point ‘Acid Test (The Walls Are Closing In)’, you’ll know whether you want to pop out for some fresh air or double down on the heady fumes given off by the duo’s high-octane sizzle. If fuzzed-out vocals and a Britpop swagger are your bag then you must stick around because there’s plenty more – the urgent ‘Let’s Run Away’ moves through several gears and ‘Roll the Dice’ deftly intertwines guitar and synth lines in an onslaught of hooks.
There are much-needed lulls in energy spread through the record, the best of which is the crooning ‘Top of the World’, which could have been smuggled out of the lobby of the Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino in a wheely suitcase. The woozy closer ‘Deep Trip’ is the perfect way to wind down after 45 minutes of genuinely captivating psych pop which wears that badge with pride without the eye-rolling “woah man it’s all so groovy” energy which plagues the genre.
Words - Joe Ponting
Solar Eyes official
Watch '(At Least)Paranoia Loves you' here