Laughing City - Eisley > Reviews > JOYFUL MELANCHOLIA

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Stunning release, beautiful vocals, wonderful lyrics
Disadvantages:	Only five tracks, will leave you wanting more !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

EISLEY – LAUGHING CITY EP

TRACKLISTING
1) I Wasn’t Prepared
2) Telescope Eyes
3) Tree Tops
4) Over The Mountains
5) Laughing City

Having lobbied for the inclusion of this wonderful EP for a long while (delayed for a long time due to the fact that the guys at the Ciao Product Proposal Department must have been having a month or five off), it is me pleasure to introduce you to the magnificent Eisley. It is only now that this wonderful band are breaking through in the US mainstream music scene, and I am not aware if anybody in the United Kingdom has yet heard of the magical Eisley. I bought this album on a whim, recommended by a friend of a friend, who said that these guys were a really awesome band with wonderful melodies, and you know what, he was right.

Eisley hail from the small town of Tyler, Texas and are quite a unique band in that they consist of four siblings and their neighbour. I am not aware of any other band with quite so strong or unique a connection (you could count Hanson I guess, but let’s not). Eisley is made up of guitarist and vocalist Sherri DuPree, vocalist and keyboardist Stacy DuPree, guitarist Chauntelle DuPree, drummer Weston DuPree and bassist Jon Wilson (he’s the next door neighbour). Eisley are a refreshing alternative to the usual pop fare that is plaguing the radios across the US and the UK, and due to the recent exposure they got thanks to a recent US tour with Coldplay, if I were a betting man then I would put some money on them breaking through in the UK pretty soon.

Let it first be said that Eisley are a Christian rock band. As a Christian myself, this is good stuff, and adds to my enjoyment of the record. However, Eisley could not really be defined as strictly a ‘Christian’ band in the sense that they sing ‘Christian’ songs of praise and worship, as while it is clear that their faith is extremely important to them, their songs are more inclined towards the mainstream than most Christian rock bands. Eisley started out touring the Christian rock circuit and playing small coffee bars, but their mainstream popularity has most certainly be evidenced by their recent tour with Coldplay, which brought them a whole ton of exposure, including a feature in Rolling Stone magazine, which sang their praises as one of the best up and coming bands in America at this point in time. One is slightly suspicious of any band who claim to be a Christian rock band and then break into the mainstream, a case in point being the devastatingly bad Evanescence, who claimed to be Christians but apparently… weren’t. Having seen them live, I very much doubt that their faith is of importance to them as their singer had a mouth like a sewer (such an unattractive feature in a lady). But then Evanescence are little more than three fat guys and a Goth in Siouxie Sioux cast-offs anyway. Eisley are in a different league to Evanescence, nay, in a completely different sport.

One of the most startling things about Eisley is the fact that not one of the band members is over 21. Indeed, the lead singer is only 15! But this is no Hanson, with their irritating Mmm-Bop nonsense, as Eisley express a depth and maturity well beyond their years. You can sense a musical richness in Eisley’s music, be it similarities with the later work of the Beatles, shades of Kate Bush at her best, the out-there weirdness of Pink Floyd (without the pretentiousness) and the alienation of Radiohead. Eisley really are quite unlike any band that I have ever listened to, and it is this refreshing uniqueness that I think adds to their appeal and makes them one of the hottest new bands around.

So, to ‘Laughing City’. Comprising only five tracks, this is a mighty little beast of a record, and all five tracks are strong in their own right. The record opens with what I would say is its strongest track, the beautiful, lilting and haunting ‘I Wasn’t Prepared’. Dealing with the theme of rejection, something everybody faces at some point in their lives, Eisley craft a beautiful sonic soundscape, with a haunting piano and distant vocal that sounds like somebody murmuring in the distance, to a build-up which has powerful effect and accentuates the beauty of the vocal. There is a childlike innocence in the vocal, which is understandable when you consider that the lead singer is only fifteen. The lyrics are childlike, almost naïve, and their sheer simplicity only serves to add to the beauty of the song.

‘Telescope Eyes’ looks at bullying and being singled out for looking different. The lyrics are almost like a conversation between two people, between the bully and the victim, with the verse saying: ‘Oh you humor me today/Calling me out to play/With your telescope eyes, metal teeth I can't be seen with you, you freak’, and then the chorus offering a sad response: ‘Please don't make me cry/Please don't make me cry/I'm just like you/I know you know/I'm just like you/So leave me alone’. The lyrics are, as we can see, apparently simple but deceptively so. The lyrics display a resilient intelligent that again indicates a maturity beyond their years. The vocals are once again magnificent, the way Sherri and Stacy DuPree harmonize really needs to be heard to be believed. They are somewhat reminiscent of those old fantastic harmonizers, the Mamas and the Papas. I imagine they are fantastic live and I would really like to check them out should they ever come to Britain. The guitars, bass and drums work together almost perfectly in this song to create quite a spectacular number.

The following song, ‘Tree Tops’, has an uncomplicated quality to it, talking about when they were young and innocent, when all they wanted to do was have fun and not be weighted down by the cares of the world (sample lyric: ‘I'll float above the ocean/The sun above is burning my head /I will grow wings and fly everywhere’). You get the sense that the band are singing about their own collective experiences (all the songs are collaborative efforts) and this adds to the charm of the song and of the whole record.

‘Over The Mountains’ is much more focused on the music than on the lyrics. Indeed, the lyrics for the entire song are:

‘With light bulbs in our pockets
We'll light this darkened forest

On the mossy turf, we'll dance till
Our feet shatter, toes will splinter

Tripping through the misty streams of light
So beautiful, I stare in awe’

And that is that. The lyrics are so wonderful and the vocals so beautiful, they are rich like caramel and backed by a wonderful band which only emphasizes their beauty.

The title track, which closes the EP, deals with some darker themes than the rest of the record, and we get a strong sense of foreboding and sadness. The song is once again of high quality. It is very rare that I buy a record in which I am consistently impressed with all the tracks on the record and am unable to find fault in any of them. Granted, there are only five songs here, but it seemed to me that this is a powerful indication that when the time comes for Eisley to release their debut album (which is slated for release sometime later this year) then it will be equally as wonderful if the incredibly high quality of the music on offer here is anything to go by. Eisley are quite an exciting band yet also one that you can listen to as you lie in your bed entering a dreamlike state, they are a class above their touring-mates Coldplay, and their intelligence is demonstrated in their deceptively simple lyrics, rich in rhyme and metaphor.

If you are a Christian then you will love Eisley. They do not dabble in the traditional praise and worship fare that one would expect from a band which have been pegged as ‘Christian’ and then denied mainstream respectability (though there are a whole bunch of Christian bands out there who deserve mainstream recognition), but instead tell real stories about innocence, childhood, growing up and having fun, which is a part of every person’s life whether they are a Christian or not. That said, I think that their faith is evident from their songs, and the songs stress sincerity and genuineness. On the other hand, if you aren’t a Christian then I think this EP will appeal to you just as much, as Eisley are, as said, not your traditional ‘Christian’ band, with songs about God, Jesus and stuff (the essence of a Christian rock band in a nutshell – ‘God, Jesus and stuff’…) and they have much more of a mainstream identity than one would expect, and their recent tour with Coldplay (who they far outclass) demonstrates the fact that this is a band of Christians in the mainstream, not a Christian band in the Christian music scene. And that, I think, is nice. The wonderful musicality of the record is reason enough to buy this record, it has so many different roots in other bands, and you can almost see Eisley playing homage to different legendary bands of the past through this release. The harmonies are consistently excellent and the music really does rock. So buy this album, I highly recommend it.