“A track about friendship and its strange ebb and flow, the childlike wonder of the vocals is shaded by a lingering wistfulness, as though every perfect moment foreshadows its inevitable end.” So we wrote of ‘fair’, the lead single from dog eyes‘ full-length album holy friend, coming next month via Grand Jury Music. The track served as the perfect introduction to an album which sees Oakland duo Davis Leach and Haily Firstman explore ideas of friendship and connection, as well as the ways in which such experiences might morph over time. All achieved with a sound which far surpasses that of dog eyes debut good, proper sendoff in both ambition and intention.
“The ‘Holy Friend’ as a concept, creates an ideal person from scraps of perfection/the divine we find in flawed places,” Firstman explains. “Hopeful, yet grounded, the ‘Holy Friend’ is a testament to the idea that age brings nuance. Something bigger than the sum of its parts that helps guide us, rooted and reflected in the nuance of friendship.” The wistful hush of ‘fair’ was followed by the downbeat fondness of ‘rusty, my dog’, establishing the intimate and often melancholic side of the dog eyes sound, though within the ostensibly quiet arrangement of the latter stirred something larger. An epic quality which might not have quite punctured the presiding subdued vibe, but burned beneath the surface nonetheless.
New single ‘moment’ allows this to bloom further into view, maintaining the bedroom pop sensibilities but fleshing out the sound with a vivid shimmer. What results is the surest evidence of the dog eyes evolution as a project. A reach towards an almost cinematic brand of pop that leaves none of the emotion behind. Something which might fit on the soundtrack of Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow—where friendship is at once the most intimate and soaring experiences one might be lucky enough to hold in their life.
holy friend is out on the 16th August via Grand Jury Music and you can pre-order it from the dog eyes Bandcamp page.
