At a time when most bands in India struggle with staying active with a regular and engaging amount of content (since music alone isn’t enough), it is fairly rare to find an off-shoot project by the same members. Sure, you can have band members detach and form duos or solo projects, but in the case of New Delhi band, Big Bang Blues, they were all on the same page. About what? Well, seems like the blues wasn’t all they wanted to do and they drew a margin on the page and formed SkyEyes.
Vocalist Diyatom Deb, guitarist Sushant Thakur, bassist Barun Sinha and drummer Akhil Kumar channel soaring psychedelic rock with their blues influences still creeping in with SkyEyes, on their debut self-titled EP. The name informs their concepts, digging into the 21st century paranoia and the idea of an online and offline identity. The madness comes into play straight away, like the internal monologue we get a glimpse of on the opening track ‘Mad Man’s Tale.’
The gloomy, melodramatic outlook is at its brooding best on the six minute-plus ‘Betrayal’, which comes across as a pained and poignant ballad featuring wailing guitar slide techniques from Thakur and an incredible range from Deb. The more laid-back, Southern rock-leaning track ‘Last Train’ voices excitement and uncertainty alike, for a person who is going through a big change in his life. It is a simpler, easier track to get into, almost typical of Indian alt rock. Thakur returns with a wail of the guitar on ‘Letter to my Father’, featuring quick paced drumming that recalls the grandiosity of Brit-rock. The topic it covers, of course, is a much more unconventional one, considering it is about confronting a parental figure about their expressionless demeanour. While there is no doubt that Big Bang Blues will return to releasing material soon, SkyEyes deliver a refreshing change of pace and tonality. They avoid being too self-indulgent for a debut release, keeping it at four songs and 21 minutes, it remains to be seen how long they will juggle both projects.
SkyEyes perform at Bflat, Indiranagar on March 9. Get the album on Spotify and Apple Music.
