There can’t be more intimidating of an album to review than Kayo Dot’s Choirs of the Eye. With that said, lets do a little background check on the origins of this band. Once upon a time, there was an incredible and little known progressive metal band called maudlin of the Well. During the creation of their fourth full-length studio album, the band lost several long time members and decided to switch labels and change their name to Kayo Dot. As you may have guessed, the fourth Maudlin of the Well album was released as Kayo Dot’s Choirs of the Eye. One name never fails to come up when talking about maudlin of the Well or Kayo Dot…that name is Toby Driver. Driver is the mastermind behind the aforementioned bands. Other members involved in the creation of Choirs at the time were – Jason Byron, Mia Matsumiya, Greg Massi, Terran Olson, Sam Gutterman and more. Choirs of the Eye expands on many different genres with many different instruments. Doing a song-by-song -review on this CD would be hopeless, as there is just no way to sum them up; it would take too long. However, I will tell you what to expect from this 5 track, 55-minute titan of an album.
If you’re wondering how long each song is, just look at the number of tracks and the total time of the album; this is not an easy listen. With only one song under the 10-minute mark, you can expect to be transfixed by lush terrains that transform from beautiful modern-classical compositions into heavy metal crescendos all in one song. The lyrics, written by Jason Byron, are highly poetic and old-fashioned sounding; for example – “Sing to me a romance, sire, that splendid trod the starry roads. All ye dust-strewn travelers, hasten to the hearthside.” You’ll find spoken vocals reciting poetry, Driver’s Jeff Buckley reminiscent vocals, vocals flooded with electronic effects and high-pitched metal “shrieks”. Some songs here create droning soundscapes, while others escalate into classical-sounding rock crescendos. Expect moments of ambiance, clever acoustic guitar work, breath taking clarinet solos, climaxes driven by Driver’s vocals, guitar solos and bouts of heavy metal that seem to come out of nowhere. I will attempt to sell you on this CD by describing what is in my opinion, the best song on the album, and Kayo Dot’s best song to date. “The Manifold Curiosity” is a 14-minute monster of a track. Its grand proportions might be underestimated by its soft guitar and clarinet duet intro, which lasts for the first minute and a half. The second portion of this song begins with acoustic guitar and a little introduction from Driver, where he speaks the words “The Manifold Curiosity”. We are treated to the repetition of the enjoyable acoustic guitar accompanied by vocals heavily flooded with an obscure electronic effect for a good three minutes until all hell breaks loose. Having described it like that, “hell” isn’t such a bad thing after all, because what comes next is a climax as powerful and beautiful as anything I’ve ever heard.
Driver shows us what he’s made of with a clarinet solo that will leave you speechless and a guitar-bass-drum background that allows him to take the words out of your mouth one by one. That crescendo will take us through to the seven-minute mark, where the song transforms into a gloomy soundscape featuring guitar and bass evolving in the background as two poems are recited on top of each other. In this section of the song, Mia Matsumiya really shows us her talent with a violin, as she creates a mood that just tells you that something huge is about to happen. Right as the poems stop, it’s clear that there’s a climax number two coming up. The song explodes into a versatile bass line accompanied by guitar feedback and riffing in the background. Before you even realize what just happened, the sweet sounds of clarinet and violin have been replaced by extremely fast paced, heavy music featuring those Driver shrieks I was talking about. This continues until the band cannot be contained anymore, and they explode into a MASSIVE metal riff-fest with only 30 seconds to show us what they’ve got. The once beautiful clarinet and guitar duet, acoustic medley and weaving clarinet solo has turned into a monster of a metal song. Now you might know what I meant by it would take too long to do a track-by-track review. Ultimately, you will find just as much detail in each song as you will in “The Manifold Curiosity”. No matter what the rating scale is: 0-10, 0-5, 0-100, this album will always receive a perfect rating from me. Absolute masterpiece.
