RED EYES UNRAVELLING

Guaranteed to make you wonder the true intent of those flying buzzing nuances that congregate every time you are having a picnic on a hot summer day, the oddly named post-rock band FLIES ARE SPIES FROM HELL formed in the summer of 2004 in Chichester, England with the anonymously consistent lineup of Chris (guitar), Will (guitar), George (bass), Watty (drums) and Fred (keyboards). The band actually started out with a vocalist but after he quit the band, the other members started to jam and focus more on the possibilities of instrumental music.

The band has been all instrumental ever since and so far has released three albums, a remix album and a few EPs. RED EYES UNRAVELLING is the band's debut and was released in 2009 following the first release "Mountain Language EP" in 2007. Having constructed an interesting style of energetic cinematic post-rock, the band's sound was described as a bizarre fusion of Mike Oldfield and Explosions In The Sky. The same year the band founded the I Am Joy Arts Festival in their hometown of Chichester which featured all-instrumental bands that included post-rock, experimental noise and soundscape sculptors as well as others. Two of the three tracks form "Mountain Language EP" are included on this one ("Mountain Language," "King Sky.")

Between the release of the EP and this debut full-length, FLIES ARE SPIES FROM HELL shared stages with a great number of similarly minded bands including Red Paper Dragon, Monsters Build Mean Robots, Wild Dogs In Winter, Russian Circles, And So I Watch You From Afar, Maybeshewill, *Shels, This Town Needs Guns, UpCDownC, A Genuine Freakshow, and Vessels. The band itself claims its music was primarily inspired by 65daysofstatic, Explosions In The Sky and Oceansize. Any way you slice it, FLIES ARE SPIES FROM HELL crafted its own unique style of dynamic and energetically delivered post-rock from the very beginning.

Unlike many modern bands especially in the post-rock world that manufacture ridiculously long albums that swallow up as much playing time as possible, RED EYES UNRAVELLING is presented in a merciful traditional vinyl album's playing time of just over 41 minutes. This carefully crafted set of seven tracks that wowed the critics once it was released having been touted as a post-rock act that was more challenging than many others in the scene and that fans of progressive rock in the context of post-rock would find appealing. The album was unfortunately delayed due to the age old problem of lightning strikes destroying the studio equipment but alas the band licked their wounds and became more determined than ever before!

One listen to FLIES ARE SPIES FROM HELL's debut and it becomes immediately clear what all the gushing reviews were all about. This is a band with a much more developed sense of musicality. Walking a tightrope act between the melodic compositional structures of King Crimson inspired progressive rock and the cyclical loop presentations of post-rock bands such as Explosions In The Sky, these southern England post-rockers accomplished something that many in the genre fail to recognize and that would be that the term post-rock contains the word ROCK within its agglutinating jurisdiction. In the vein of Russian Circles, FLIES ARE captured a wide range of soundscapes on RED EYES UNRAVELLING ranging from the typical soft passages of post-rock to heavier cacophonous uproars.

The music is intricately designed as if Godspeed You! Black Emperor was infused with classical musical riffs, heavier rock bravado and genuine interest in time signature deviations and elements that actually earn the progressive rock tag all without sacrificing the clear devotion to the framework of what one would deem post-rock in the 21st century. This is post-rock that actually unleashes complex drum rolls, dueling guitar riffs, independently minded neoclassical keyboard runs and a bantering bass groove that exists on its own trajectory. While no vocals exist, not even spoken samples, FLIES ARE SPIES FROM HELL will surely appeal to those who like a bit more rock heft in their post-rock.