Unlike the last simpering effort by his Canuck collective Swan Lake, Carey Mercer’s fifth album as Frog Eyes is a furiously lobbed Molotov cocktail of well-read rock – a volatile brew of uneasy drama and emotion from a band that, on this showing, should always record live. To partner the earnest and psych-gothic style in which Carey writes, Frog Eyes deliver the only noise acceptable: howling voices, waves of super-fuzz, swirling riffs that are always tantalisingly out of grasp and the wild guttural sound of Tom Waits, Scott Walker or The National when they still had a pair.
Chris Parkin
Click here to get your copy of Frog Eyes’ ‘Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph’ from the Rough Trade shop