Eisley : Room Noises


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Valentine’s Day has just passed, Cupid shot his lusty arrow, and I think I’m in love. I just hope my wife understands. You see, I have been captivated by a band’s debut album and I just can’t stop thinking about them or it. I am smitten, swooning, and swelteringly in love. It’s the kind of love that women get when they see Johnny Depp donning both a tuxedo and a Scottish accent in Finding Neverland. It’s the kind of love that just makes it okay to listen to Chicago or Journey’s sappy and sticky sweet ballads. It’s a heart throbbing, nausea, jangly nerves, hitched breath, anxious, twitchy, nutty, cuckoo, crazy kind of love, and I don’t want it to end.

I first heard Eisley on the Maybe This Christmas Too? compilation. And although the CD featured songs by Rufus Wainwright, Rilo Kiley, Badly Drawn Boy, and the Flaming Lips, Eisley’s “The Winter Song” stole the show. It’s no wonder that the likes of Snow Patrol and Coldplay recruited them to tour and that Reprise quickly signed them to a major label deal. It seems like every other band with a piano these days is compared to Coldplay, but what we really need is not a Coldplay clone, but a female counterpart. Sorry Weston and Jonathan (the male two-fifths of Eisley) but the wonder and delicate framework of the band rests solely on the shoulders of the three DuPree sisters, Chauntelle, Sherri, and Stacy.

Room Noises is one of those albums that comes along only in a blue moon…with an eclipse….and a meteor shower. I wasn’t really exaggerating about the feelings of nausea and anxiety earlier because that’s how I felt as I listened to the album for the first time. The sweeping choruses of “Telescope Eyes” nearly forced me to pull over for fear of obscuring my vision with tears. Am I gushing? Well, yes and I think you get my point. Not only does the band have musical ability, writing and playing catchy pop hooks, poignant ballads, and tender lyrics, but they can harmonize and make their voices a ridiculously beautiful force to be reckoned with. And not only does Eisley have all that, but they are the best looking bunch I’ve ever seen. Frankly, it’s sickening. How can this happen? Where did these genes come from?

Singer and keyboardist Stacy really shows her stuff on “Marvelous Things,” one of the songs on the album that previously appeared on one of their EP’s. The song features lyrics that could have been written collaboratively between Tim Burton and Lewis Carroll, with music that rivals the aforementioned Chris Martin and Co. The band’s oldest member is Chauntelle at a whopping twenty-two years old, so I can’t imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end of the exchanged verses between Sherri and Stacy (the latter only sixteen) when they declare their love. It must be similar to how I would feel if Jenny Lewis caught my eye at a show. Ok, hold on, I have to catch my breath for a minute; I’m getting a little winded. I’m far too old for this, besides being happily married.

So what else can I really say about Room Noises? Because of their youth, it scares me to think that Eisley can only get better. With such an auspicious beginning, well reviewed EP’s, tours with Coldplay and Snow Patrol, and an inclusion on a pretty big-time Christmas compilation, expectations were set pretty high for their debut album. Yet somehow Eisley far surpassed those expectations in creating a stunning debut full-length effort. Maybe they’re similar to the Finn Brothers in that only family can mesh this well or maybe it’s the sisters and brother thing like the Corrs. But perhaps its something altogether different, something new, wondrous, strange and beautiful. That’s Eisley.

Similar Albums:
The Innocence Mission- Befriended
Coldplay- A Rush of Blood to the Head
The Sundays- Blind

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