by Hannah Liuzzo
Four years after the release of 2012’s What Are You Wrong With, Boston based sneakergaze noise-pop quartet Bedroom Eyes is back with Honeysuckle, a 10-track celestially atmospheric sonic collage of sludge, fuzz, reverb, and dream pop falsetto. Carefully gift-wrapped into an intimate and dreamy continuum, Bedroom Eyes offer a new take on grunge/shoegaze, blending pop accessibility with sonic intricacy for a record vague in delivery but specific in affect.
Though Bedroom Eyes admittedly draw heavy influence from the founding shoegaze gods of the 90s, the interactive and heavily melodic guitar work from both RJ Murphy and Adam Meran give the record a sort of pop sensibility and lightness that you wouldn’t expect when you think of fuzz bands. If you were to strip away all the guitar effects and add just a dash of delay, a handful of the songs (especially “Wild Sins” and “Ripe”) could potentially pass as a weekend feel-good track off of a Real Estate record—easy to be with, fun to follow. It’s a welcomed variation on the genre that gives it a passport into another realm of songwriting and style.
Honeysuckle has an intuitively satisfying handle on controlled tension, both within the songwriting and in the sequence of tracks. The light-hearted wandering and ethereal vocal/guitar melodies are patrolled by outbursts from HUGE textured choruses and tracks like “Plain Heir” and “Gypsy”, where wall-of-sound bendy guitar washes are scraped out over thickly rounded/fuzzy bass tones and driven by fast drums with spastic fills. Sludgy peaks are segmented by cleverly timed interludes (“(Highsummer)” and “(Deepwinter)”), warm and wonderfully digestible soundscapes that are as deeply intimate as they are senseless and fleeting (a seemingly obvious nod to My Bloody Valentine’s “Touched” from Loveless).
Misty, elusive, and carnal, Honeysuckle is a moody compilation for the overcast. A side step away from the nugaze fad bands, Bedroom Eyes has converted the science of experimental sound making into a sensual and shadowy sensibility that will weave its way seductively into your awareness. An obvious product of talent and well developed collaboration, Honeysuckle is at the top of my list of records from 2015, of bands from Boston, and of new bands redefining old genres.