A Colossal Waste Of Light (CD)

Eyelids’ new album, A Colossal Waste of Light, does an excellent job of framing the quintet as one of today’s most compelling purveyors of lopsided guitar pop workouts and earworm-laden vocal melodies. It also proves that great guitar pop can still evoke favorites from a glorious past - the penetrating moodiness of XTC’s Black Sea, or R.E.M.’s Fables of the Reconstruction, comes to mind - while refusing to waste time on idle nostalgia.

On their 4th full-length album (but 17th vinyl offering if you include previous 7”s and EPs) the Portland, OR band also rediscover the beauty of firsts. A Colossal Waste of Light marks the first time the band wrote songs remotely (“it ended up being fun & weird to send out a very simple version of a song and see who came back first with another part for it”, John Moen looks back), their first reunion at the Destination: Universe studio post-isolation, and their first batch of melodious new tunes since The Accidental Falls, the band’s 2020 project with poet, lyricist and Tim Buckley collaborator Larry Beckett (an extra-ordinary pairing that allowed Eyelids’ two frontmen/tunesmiths, Chris Slusarenko and John Moen, to find a new, multilayered appreciation for the art of songcraft).

1. Crawling Off Your Pages 2. Swinging In The Circus 3. That's Not Real At All 4. Only So Much 5. They Said So 6. Runaway, Yeah 7. Colossal Waste of Light 8. The Snowfire Band 9. Everything That I See You See Better (22) 10. Misuse 11. Pink Chair 12. Lyin' In Your Tomb 13. I Can't Be Told

• Released: 3/10/23
• Format Detail: CD Gatefold Wallet
• Format: CD
• Genre: Indie & Alternative