Amusement Parks On Fire Have Road Eyes

Nottingham's Amusement Parks on Fire have literally been making a racket for the last five or so years. Exploding on the post-shoegazing, shoegazing scene and taking root within it, the band have established itself as one of the forerunners of the revival which has enjoyed quite a bit of popularity recently. Their third album, Road Eyes, is a fantastic album of dreamy noise pop that you will swear was released in 1992. This is the sound of Ride if they continued in the direction of Going Blank Again, this is the Pale Saints with a bit of muscle behind them...this is Amusement Parks on Fire paying tribute to the past by bringing it bang up to date.

With a wall of distortion five miles high and songs that rocket towards the stars AMOP are masters of creating epic, noisy, widescreen pop that's so large that the compact disc format can barely contain it. The nine songs here are blissed out, distorted gems that envelope you in sheets of guitar noise as harmonious melodies caress you, leaving you awash in post-shoegazing ecstasy. It's awesome stuff that continues this band's tradition of keeping its eyes on the retro and future side of things at the same time. Road Eyes is packed with fantastic songsmanship and even better musicianship that shows that AMOP continue to develop as band who constantly harness their inner muso.

AMOP quite simply could find a melody lost in a haystack. These guys pull melodies and harmonies out of the sheets of noise they create and manage to fuse the two together so well that at times you forget this is a band that's got nine million things going on around them. From the string laden super space ballad, "Inside Out," to the pop centric riffage of the title track, or the truly massive, nearly 9 minute long, "Inspects The Evil Side," Road Eyes never loses the songs in all the miasma the AMOP produce.

Confident and able to craft songs under any condition, Amusement Parks on Fire prove repeatedly on this disc, why they are the forerunners of the 'gazing revival. I love this band and I love Road Eyes...it's a psychedelic space trip through guitar fog and enough dry ice to last a lifetime. Road Eyes is epic pop that's larger than life and sounds as if it was recorded on another planet. This record never ceases to amaze. Amusement Park on Fire might have Road Eyes but we only have eyes for this band!