Esoteric (label)
10 December 2015 (released)
10 December 2015
The first two albums from a band who are so esoteric that they don’t even have their own Wikipedia entry. It doesn’t stop them being incredibly enjoyable to listen to and there is no doubting that there is a lot of talent in the band.
They feature Phil Ryan on keyboards – later to join Man and also Pete Brown’s Piblokto – as well as John Weathers on drums – an integral part of Gentle Giant and played with Wild Turkey, Graham Bond and The Grease Band – and their keyboard heavy sound is definitely ‘of the time’. I would say that they remind me very much of The Nice but there is a more quirky and humorous side to them rather than The Nice’s more po-faced attitude. Lou Reizner’s production may well have been a large part of that quirkiness.
The music is an amalgam of sixties themes from the title track of ‘Crossroads Of Tome’ which talks to the movement from the entrepreneurial spirit of ’65 & ’66 into the hippie era to ‘Prodigal Son’ covering the biblical theme and a touch of mysticism all wrapped into a progressive rock mixed with pop melange of music and switching between psychedelic jam to multi-voiced pop chorus.
Their own songs are strong but the three covers on the first album – Love’s ‘7+7 Is’, Graham Bond’s ‘Love is The Law’ and the Beatles ‘Yesterday’ all work on a different level to the originals – ‘Love Is The Law’ is especially fine.
Their ‘freak outs’ show them to be a fine bunch of musicians but the first album also has a delightful naivety as they seek to find their voice and end up borrowing lavishly from bands all around them (not at all unusual for bands at the time).
The second album has a more confident air about it with the opening track, ‘Merry Go Round’ being picked as the theme for the movie ‘The Toy-Grabbers’ (aka ‘Up Your Teddy Bear’) by none other than Quincy Jones.
The music on ‘In Fields of Ardath’ is more explorative covering orchestral rock, Django Reinhart tinged jazz (‘Souvenir’), large scale progressive on ‘Door (The Child That is Born On The Sabbath Day)’ replete with mellotron.
‘Ardath’ is their take on a softer and more psychedelic number and very fine it is too while ‘Little Bird’ is a Beatle-esque pop tune. ‘After The War’ puts them in heavy Blues territory while ‘Extra Hour’ has a wonderful strangeness about it.
The bonus track is a strange and rather brilliant version of The Shadows ‘Apache’ – ‘Apache 69’ – which should have been a success as a single.
Eyes Of Blue are a forgotten band but a fine one too. Member’s involvement in such bands as Man and Gentle Giant plus Gary Pickford-Hopkins work with Wild Turkey and Rick Wakeman proves their individual talent but they work as a collective too.
