LAUGH IN THE DARK
Meanwhile, I have a 3-CD player in the same unit, so I started playing CD’s again, including several that had been sitting around unopened for so many months. One trio of CD’s that I put on started off with Laugh in the Dark, the first album by the Invisible Eyes; followed by Iggy and the Stooges’ Open Up and Bleed!, billed as “The Great Lost Stooges Album?” and the eponymous CD, Les Hell on Heels by Les Hell on Heels. That turned out to be an absolutely thunderous combination of albums that occurred quite by accident; I have played that set of CD’s (usually in the same order) a half dozen times at least in the week and a half ever since; I have put them on right now.
Highlights from the album? Laugh in the Dark is nothing but highlights as far as I am concerned. “All killer, no filler” as the saying goes. The album starts with a searing note from the organ (a variety of organ blasts are pretty much omnipresent throughout the album actually), followed by a shriek from the guitar; and then a potent garage-rock beat takes off with the opening track “Revelation”. The second song, “Can’t Wake Up” is the one that convinced me that these folks were for real.
Most of the songs are fast and loud; the Invisible Eyes must be amazing in concert. There are a couple of slower songs (not slow, but slower) on the CD also that are really nice, particularly “Don’t Wanna Go” and “Luanne”.
There are three very short instrumental passages, “YMA”, “Trapezoid Stomp” and “Whiskey Vampire”; the latter track barely runs 30 seconds, but the world would definitely be a sadder place if it did not exist, let me tell you. “Trapezoid Stomp” sounds a little like a first draft of the last and best song, “That Old Song . . .”; there is that same “Dum-da-dum-da-dum-da-da-dum-dum” beat. “Monster Beat” starts with a smear of sound that could have been a defect on the CD, but I guess it is supposed to be like that.
(December 2012)
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Items: Laugh in the Dark
