EYES: A Celebration For Generation L
Maybe it says more about their wonderful country than anything else, but Copenhagen’s EYES have hit on a level of national interest you would never expect for a nasty noisy hardcore band here in the UK. Just days before we catch up with vocalist Victor Kaas and guitarist Rasmus Furbo the five-piece have been announced to perform at Denmark’s prestigious GAFFA Prisen, the same awards ceremony at which they received a nomination for Danish Band of The Year just two years prior thanks to their excellent debut full-length Underperformer. It’s one of many signs of a band on the rise, and as they gear up to release their sophomore album Congratulations the hope is that they can carry this momentum far beyond their home country’s borders.
“Internationally there hasn’t really been that much hype, it’s been in smaller circles with nerds basically,” laughs Kaas. “But that’s also awesome. But here in Denmark we have hit a bit of a broader audience, and it’s a first step I guess. So I think the expectation of topping Underperformer is probably a bit bigger here.”
It doesn’t sound like the band were that worried about those expectations though, and while both admit that the nerves have started to set in a little more with the album’s release so clearly on the horizon, Kaas smiles as he tells us that they spent most of their time in the studio affectionately referring to the record as “album of the year 2023.” They have every right to be confident; Congratulations does what all good sophomore albums should, picking up on the best bits of the debut and refining them into a more focused end product to give the band an increasingly clear sense of identity.
“We took a long time to write the music and really narrow it down to what we can do that’s different, but still sounds like us playing,” affirms Furbo. “And way more on Congratulations we really found our way of playing. Of course stuff started on Underperformer but we took the things we did on Underperformer and developed them so it wasn’t going to be the same all over again.”
Perhaps the most obvious example of what Furbo’s talking about is the absolute chaos that he and fellow guitarist Søren Bomand unleash upon their fretboards, often just sliding their hands bewilderingly up and down the neck in lieu of picking out any particular notes or chords. It sounds almost silly, but it works when you hear it. “I remember the first time I did it I thought it sounded really stupid,” grins Furbo. “But I think it was our drummer that said ‘no, just do it anyway and I’ll do some groovy drums or whatever’. Even the dumbest riff can sound cool with some groovy bass and drums over it. On Congratulations we tried to do even more with the two guitars… We were just experimenting really and we got pretty good at it.”
Kaas speaks similarly of pursuing his own style as vocalist, something he’s been doing for the better part of a decade now. Again, the results speak for themselves, his anguished, bile-ridden bark another of the defining features of the record, and one that came with a notable physical cost. “For the first time ever I totally lost my voice recording the vocals in the studio,” he explains. “I feel like I did really put my body on the line. My voice was blown out for two weeks, and I’ve never tried anything like it but then I just recorded the vocals myself at my school – I have a small studio space there.”
Also key is the band’s striking visual aesthetic, for which the duo are quick to credit their unofficial visual designer Jon Gotlev. It’s an intentional rejection of the dark and gritty blackened hardcore aesthetics that surround them in the Danish scene, with each of their albums so far marked by their own distinct palettes and styles. “We took inspiration from new Nordic magazines and stuff like that for Underperformer – you know IKEA and shit like that,” elaborates Kaas. “For Congratulations, that was one of the first lyrics that I wrote for the record and from that it spawned this kind of birthday party theme. We just want to take it to some weird places and play around with the general idea and just take it to a certain extreme.
After all, extremity is the name of the game really. Kaas makes that clear when we ask him what he hopes listeners will take away from Congratulations when it lands in their hands just a few short weeks after our conversation. “I want them to be sonically overwhelmed, because the first time I listened to the final master that was the feeling I walked away with and I think that’s just a really powerful impact to have on someone. I want people to remember the hooks and scream them into my face when they come watch us live.”
Lastly it’s Furbo’s turn to look to the future, and he summarises his vision for the band going forward as “Not being afraid of taking chances… Just because we’re a hardcore band doesn’t mean that we can’t do quieter songs or heavier songs or make a themed album or whatever.” This refusal to limit themselves is abundantly clear on Congratulations already, and wherever they take it from here you can count on more than just their countrymen paying close attention.
Congratulations is out now via Indisciplinarian.
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