{"id":17874,"date":"2018-10-03T01:00:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T05:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=17874"},"modified":"2022-01-06T19:48:43","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:48:43","slug":"album-review-exploding-eyes-orchestra-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=17874","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Exploding Eyes Orchestra &#8211; II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Exploding Eye Orchestra (Jess and the Ancient Ones alter ego) has returned in 2018 with Exploding Eyes Orchestra II and, as usual, they left me dumbfounded and speechless.\u00a0 I was so blown away by their debut album that I didn\u2019t even think we would ever seen another.\u00a0 This time around, EEO has stepped things up a notch and really produced something special.\u00a0 The opening track, \u201cThose of Us Left\u201d is a sort of gothic\/ethereal piece that sounds like something you would hear in your mind just as you were slipping into REM and into sleep.\u00a0 It\u2019s such an odd way to open an album but it totally works because the rest of the album literally sounds like a dream.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBelladonna\u201d is an upbeat rocker that definitely pulls from the same kind of vibe as the debut album while \u201cHarmain\u201d is a Finnish ballad that is as dark and haunting as it is beautiful.\u00a0 This song showcases so much growth in the voice of lead singer Jess and actually gave me chills the first time I heard it, and the second time, and the\u2026 well, you get the picture.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"750\" height=\"563\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p8xiEMMlrrM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The 10 minute epic \u201cLove Eternal\u201d was such a perfect way to close out the album but in my opinion, the 6.5 minute opus \u201cThe Birch and the Sparrow\u201d is the real show stopper on this album.\u00a0 I feel that this song perfectly encapsulates everything Exploding Eyes Orchestra is all about.\u00a0 It\u2019s dark, it\u2019s brooding, it\u2019s beautiful, it\u2019s heartbreaking; it captures so many emotions and emotes them directly to the listener.\u00a0 I could feel and hang on to every chord, every note, every change, and every soulful lyric.\u00a0\u00a0 To me, this is a perfect song.<\/p>\n<p>What shocked me the most about EEO II is that this album was recorded at the same time as EEO I.\u00a0 That means that these songs are five fucking years old.\u00a0 This album sounds like it could have been recorded last month and honestly, it sounds so much stronger, so different from EEO I.\u00a0 Maybe that is why they decided to save these songs for a future release but whatever it is, there\u2019s a certain magic and chemistry to this material that is far more present than on the debut.<\/p>\n<p>EEO II is a masterpiece that combines gothic undertones with psychedelic rock all with a very dreamy, ethereal mood.\u00a0 EEO II is without doubt mood music but its music that can be thoroughly enjoyed in any mood at any given time.\u00a0 \u00a0I can only hope that the world will get more from this amazing band but that we won\u2019t have to wait another five years to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exploding Eye Orchestra (Jess and the Ancient Ones alter ego) has returned in 2018 with Exploding Eyes Orchestra II and, as usual, they left me dumbfounded and speechless.\u00a0 I was so blown away by their debut album that I didn\u2019t even think we would ever seen another.\u00a0 This time around, EEO has stepped things up a notch and really produced something special.\u00a0 The opening track, \u201cThose of Us Left\u201d is a sort of gothic\/ethereal piece that sounds like something you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,277],"tags":[1866,1117,1372],"class_list":["post-17874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-music-news","tag-exploding-eyes-orchestra","tag-jess-and-the-ancient-ones","tag-svart-records"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19632,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17874\/revisions\/19632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}