Detroit, once a city of industrial success and seemingly endless potential, now stands as a feeble paradigm of American loss and abandonment. The recent economic downturn which shook the nation at large to its core resonated with a vengeance in Detroit, forcing the city’s auto companies to cut even more jobs than what now seems to be their semi annual quota and leaving thousands without work. The city’s tumultuous, seemingly prophetic future present alludes to what could be the ultimate conclusion of the American dream deferred. Considering their city’s state and its history, rock and roll and otherwise, it isn’t hard to fathom what inspires Human Eye’s twisted sounds.
Few bands approach the garage template from as far out in left field as Human Eye. Ambitious, some say to a fault, Human Eye crams each song with burned out shards of punk, glam, psychedelia, metal, and perhaps most notably, vintage sci-fi theatrics. At their most unhinged, Human Eye is a wrecking ball of dense rock and roll shrapnel covered in iridescent space slop. The band constructs an exhaustive aural dystopia of ugly libertine fantasy and smashes it just for kicks. The band forgoes the conventional approach of interweaving influences; instead Human Eye opt to kitchen sink it all at once, offering a collision of Swell Maps at their most frizzled, Debris’ proto-punk swirl, and Chrome's post apocalyptic swagger. The effect can be disorienting, but remains compelling even when entropy seems to be taking over. Only when Human Eye comes up for air does their brand of histrionic future cheese begin to harden and become less palatable. But the steam that is lost is not due to a lack of ambition. Even when their songs stumble and the lyrics are a bit too baked, Human Eye’s strut remains deliberate, uncompromising, and provocative.
Like any good science fiction text, the fantasy world that Human Eye conjures is at once an escape from and affirmation of the reality that produced it. Few bands working from this aesthetic standpoint nail it like Human Eye. There could be something in Detroit’s water; I wouldn’t discount it. But I imagine it’s a healthy dose of Detroit hard living that inspires the band’s fantastic wreck.
www.myspace.com/humaneyedetroit
See Human Eye Sunday, Oct. 26th at the Redwood Bar and Grill and Monday the 27th somewhere in Long Beach (no info available on that one). Static Static and Imagine the Band open.
