A wooden bossa-nova groove, calming waves crashing gently on the shore and tropical touches of synths open In Bloom’s latest release “New Eyes”.
The intro breaks into a catchy guitar fuzzy riff and the cool, forgiving breeze of singer and drummer Franky Broek’s vocals. “New Eyes” is laid back and catchy and feels like summer on the beach. It could easily soundtrack a cinematic shot of Miami in the ’70’s with men in leisure suits with big-collars and even bigger black-out sunglasses worn late into the evening – and it comes along with a visualiser, animated by Julia Schimautz.
The song also comes as a bit of departure from the band’s earlier work. “New Eyes” is mellow in temperament and the band embraces a bedroom-indie-pop demeanour. This is not who I saw at a Mercury gig in 2016. In Bloom were everything their Nirvana-referencing name promised – not sonically, but in attitude. That performance was a no holds barred attack with one goal: to get the crowd head banging. And they weren’t pulling any punches with Broek hammering the cans on an elevated stage howling bloody murder.
Now In Bloom takes on a new meaning on their latest track, which lyrically is reflective on the process of looking at things with new eyes. This may be the emergence of a new version of the band which is thoughtful and measured where their past self was impulse-driven and raw.
Feature pic supplied by artist
