Send "Frog Eyes " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Indie rock can sometimes seem like a figure skating competition, where those who can't make their vocals the prettiest instead aim for the highest degree of difficulty. Certain artists-- the Dirty Projectors, Joanna Newsom-- stretch the limits of the seven-note scale, crafting melodies that take longer to resolve than sentences in a German philosophy text. Others go for extremity of tone: the glass-shattering falsetto of Passion Pit, or the chest-rumbling baritone of the National. Frog Eyes' Casey Mercer grafts a combination of these approaches into his own voice, a slippery beast that sounds like it gargles with wax in the morning. And while some bands might settle for those vocal contortions as their only exotic feature, Frog Eyes' arrangements are every bit as unpredictable as Mercer's catalog of shouts, groans, and other odd emphases. At full flight, the band's lengthy epics trace impossibly complex patterns that can be briefly stunning in the rare cases where they improbably collide.When we last heard from Frog Eyes-- before the weird-vocal derby really got fired up-- they left us with their best example of that spectacle: the serpentine, cathartic "Bushels". That song appears, at first, to have passed its baton to Paul's Tomb: A Triumph, which opens with the sprawling "A Flower in a Glove" and then winds its way through three more six-minute-plus journeys. But a disappointing pattern begins to take shape in each of these long chapters, as the band begins on a promising note during the first three minutes, but exhausts itself over the last nine....full text |
| Popmatters |
| I’ve got a broken voice. Much like his ever prolific BFF, Spencer Krug, Frog Eyes’ manic ringleader Carey Mercer has finally returned to his day-job after taking time off for a couple of rewarding sojourns: first with supergroup Swan Lake (a trio that includes Krug and Dan Bejar of Destroyer) and then for his solo project Blackout Beach. Regardless of where he’s hanging his hat on any particular day, Mercer’s singular voice (literally and figuratively) remains a constant on everything he does. Arguably, this makes the whole concept of “side projects” pretty pointless for a guy like Mercer because no matter what alias he’s working under, they all sound pretty similar on account of his bracing idiosyncrasies. Prior to the last Frog Eyes opus, 2007’s Tears of the Valedictorian, the band’s catalogue consisted almost entirely of brief, spastic songs, but Tears was stocked with labyrinthine, caterwauling epics like “Caravan Breakers” and “Bushels”. Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph continues this trend toward prog-like pomposity with four (of nine) songs passing the six-minute mark. Although they sometimes feel a minute or two longer than need be, I’m all in favor of Mercer’s move towards expansive songwriting. Giving his tightly wound tunes room to breathe has only made him a more formidable talent, but still an underrated one. Paul’s Tomb features another rare occurrence in the Frog Eyes oeuvre: moments of genuine serenity. It’s not much, but the shimmering instrumental “Lear, In the Park” and the brooding, buzzy “Violent Psalms” are smartly placed in the album’s sequencing to provide calm amongst all the bursts of violent glee. Of course, Mercer’s sputtering wail is a big reason why “beauty” is uncommon in his work. He is undeniably an acolyte of men like Black Francis and Tom Waits, but he can tame his voice when the song demands it....full text |
| Drownedinsound |
| The most amazing thing about that interbred indie music scene from British Columbia, Canada is that nothing that has emerged from it has been discernibly awful. From Wolf Parade, to Sunset Rubdown, to Handsome Furs, to Swan Lake, to Frog Eyes, and all the rest, quality prevails. It might have something to do with the sharing of members, or the similarity between the sounds of the bands (and those factors are clearly interlinked), or that separately and together they've forged their own identity as a scene – something clearly on the 'indie rock' (sicks in mouth) spectrum, but somehow apart from it too. Frog Eyes definitely exist within that definition, the music resembling Wolf Parade but with a greater awareness of space. Paul's Tomb: A Triumph is less frantic than previous record Tears Of The Valedictorian. It sees them revel in the journey. It also puts the vocals at the core of their sound. Without lyric sheets it's hard to say exactly what is going on here with the words, strangled as they are in guttural yelps and off beat accenting. It ends up naturally distorting the words. Carey Mercer's voice is the fulcrum around which everything else happens. The guitars and drums and keys are built around the echoes and the layers, the whoops and stutters. These songs aren't sung. They're performed. Mercer lives his vocals, and brings what could be flat indie into vivid, vibrant Technicolor. It might be pretentious to say it, but the performance is almost operatic....full text |
Frog Eyes lyrics
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