Eyeless In Gaza - Drumming the Beating Heart 1982

Whereas previous Eyeless in Gaza material, especially the album Pale Hands I Loved So Well, was somewhat non-linear and improvisational, Drumming the Beating Heart emphasizes another side of the band's identity. Martyn Bates and Peter Becker take a more focused approach on this album, although they are working within a familiar idiom -- drafting melancholy, sometimes unsettling sketches with minimal percussion, introspective lyrics, emotionally charged vocals, and sparse, melodic keyboard and guitar patterns. Notwithstanding the atmospheric instrumental "Dreaming at Rain," which continues in the rambling, experimental vein that was most pronounced on Pale Hands I Loved So Well, this material finds the Nuneaton duo fashioning their stock sonic components into more immediately accessible, conventional song structures, albeit at the avant end of the pop spectrum. This departure is evident on the single "Veil Like Calm" (which also marked the band's first foray into music video), and the stripped-down, staccato guitar funk of "Two." A salient characteristic of this album is its juxtaposition of the fragile and reflective alongside the jagged and fraught, sometimes in the context of the same track: On "Transience Blues," for instance, Bates' urgent, almost pained vocals and a shuddering rhythm are shadowed by haunting keyboards. Drumming the Beating Heart's most compelling tracks are those that underscore the influence of traditional English folk forms on Eyeless in Gaza's work. Although it's rendered in a considerably pared-down manner, that influence manifests itself particularly on "Ill Wind Blows," with its droning keyboard and bare, rattling percussion, and on the short, vocally intense "Picture the Day." Listened to alongside the band's earlier projects, Drumming the Beating Heart reflects Eyeless in Gaza's growing maturity. The newfound cohesion and developing pop sensibility demonstrated here would be more fully realized on Rust Red September the following year. AMG.

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