Red Eye - III

Red Eye is a doom metal band from Spain, who formed in 2016.  Their latest album, “III” is their, wait for it, third album.  But don’t wait for it—jump on this now because it’s fantastic.  

The band is a three piece, but they sound like an invading army of a thousand—Pablo’s drums and Antonio’s bass are basically the audio version of an earthquake.  Whether you play it loud, or with a decent pair of headphones, your brain is going to be rattled inside your skull by these two. What’s more metal than that?

Perhaps Antonio Campo’s guitars?  Thick as hell, sweltering as the sun and loaded with enough fuzz to tame a hippo.  His tone is very deep and sludgy, providing riffs for days, which resulted in pain for days with all the headbanging I did. 

The three of them together just have this absolutely massive sound.  The production helps too: loud (not overly) with a fantastic mix that captures the instruments on an individual level yet brings them all together.  

After the brief instrumental intro of “Ad Infinitum,” the album kicks into high gear with the first full song “Sagittarius A.”  The bass and guitars are in contest to see which one turns my brain into mush first, all the while hammered into oblivion by the drums.  I like the vocals, somewhere between a growl and a gritty wail.  Around the 3:05 mark, the bass bends around the universe, in between planetary crunches of rhythm before the band settles into a crushing groove.  This is how you doom!

“No Morning After,” showcases just how dynamic their brand of doom can be.  This song is heavy on the psychedelic vibes, like stoner doom but 40 times heavier.  I love how heavy the beginning is and how it contrasts with the more melodic approach to the vocals this time around.  Around the 2:16 mark, the shouting begins as the song takes a darker approach.  The vocal patterns after the 4-minute mark are catchy too, as is the drumming and the mind fuck lead that comes afterwards.

Just because it is doom doesn’t mean there can’t be a sense of urgency.  “Stardust” builds up the momentum perfectly.  The rolling of the drums and pounding of the bass kicks it into high gear as the riffs begin to break necks.  This song is quite the barn burner, with a lot of groove and up tempo as well.  This is a good song for cruising…if you drive a tank.

The last song, “The Nine Billion Names of God,” is a fantastic album ender and it showcases how they can stretch their sound while still retaining the essence of it.  The psychedelic vibes throughout the song, especially with the clean vocals and melodic bass, gives the song a unique atmosphere but it’s the middle portion that sent me to another dimension.  Very trippy!

All in all, Red Eye’s “III” is quite the engaging doom metal albums that’s so heavy that I think it will even appeal to people who normally don’t care for the psychedelic stuff but fans of the genre will eat this up. 

Rating:  Excellent