Psychedelic shoegazers Tombstones In Their Eyes are releasing their latest EP A Higher Place next Tuesday, April 26th… and it’s a doozy.
Adding more melody and even harmonies to their fuzzed out, reverb-heavy distortion, TITE (as their fans who want to abbreviate it – call them) adopt that authentic 80s/early 90s shoegaze vibe and inject modern production a la Paul Roessler (T.S.O.L., Josie Cotton, Richie Ramone) for music that has been hailed by Big Takeover (“mesmerizingly brooding and fuzzed-out ‘n’ fiery”), Luminous Dash (“a combination of Kyuss’ stoner rock that The Jesus & Mary Chain encountered at the time of Psychocandy while Spaceman 3 also came to say hello”), and Ghettoblaster (“a psychedelic opus from one track to the next”).
A Higher Place continues the reverb where their last album (2021’s Looking For A Light) left off. Still woolly, they took special care focusing on the melodic side of their creativity.
“I love singing, and now, instead of ten layers of fuzz guitar, it can be six layers of harmonies on some songs, although we still do a lot of fuzz guitar,” said mastermind John Treanor about this record.
There’s the acoustic guitar-laden, almost pop-esque intro track “I Know Why” that eventually explodes into the band’s signature fuzzed-out swirl. There’s the driving title track that adds flashes of 2000s indie rock to the band’s sound and features some of TITE’s most memorable guitar riffs and melodies to date. The six-and-a-half minute psychedelic “I’m Not Living In Fear” is also a highlight on the EP, showcasing the band creating a hypnotic drone that coalesces into choir-like layered background vocals. All of this is accompanied by a self-described “depressive’s mantra” that was written to help ease the anxiety and depression Treanor was feeling at the time. The EP closes with the meditative, slow-creeping “The River,” which was inspired by finding comfort in life despite hardship.