My Review of Eye Was an Ion's "The EP"

I wrote a review of the new Eye Was an Ion album for Northern Rocks Magazine, but I guess I must have submitted it too late or something because it wasn't published. Anyway, here is the review. It's a little short because I tried to keep it under 150 words:



Sudbury-based Eye Was an Ion's debut EP has been a long time in the making, and it shows. These are songs that have reached full maturity, having spent the last ten years marinating in the minds and on the tape reels of chief songwriters Ryan Kitchen and Mac Colasimone. The songs are at once distant-sounding and emotionally resonant, as if the weight of the world is hanging on the weary shoulders of the band.

This is not to say that the songs won't make you move. The rhythms are indeed as powerful as the melodies, contrasting nicely with the melancholy character of the songs. From start to finish, there is not a sleeper on this album.

The songs share common melodic themes, which helps to tie the album together as a cohesive unit, but there are of course a few standouts on the record. The arhythmic percussion at the start of I Will Hunt You gives it a spooky character, which makes the chorus all the more powerful. And, when the lyric "A Reason to Comfort You" is sung on the song The Measure of Attitude, it is absolutely heartbreaking. These two songs constitute the meaty high point of a swervy line that carries the album through it's meandering course.

This band is truly a gift to Northern Ontario music, accomplishing more with subtle whispers and glassy guitar textures than all the screaming and distortion in the world ever could.