Emerging as one of the survivors of the early '10s shoegaze scrum, Bedroom Eyes is now ten years into their career and still churning out mature and quite accessible noise rock. And I do need to emphasize the descriptors"noise" and "rock" when discussing their latest album, Turned Away, by the way. Bedroom Eyes, like most bands in the Infinity Girl-Young Prims-No Joy stratum, are particularly preoccupied with tightly threading stray strands of psychedelic guitar sounds into poppy jangles that groove well with excessive levels of feedback. That's all par for the course, but what makes the group's output easy to return to, again and again, is their ability to keep their focus through all that heady noise. For all the bust and bluster, Turned Away does not, in fact, divert from the well-worn path to rock euphoria despite its many other refinements. Even on songs like "Portraits" or the vaunted and vespertine "Through Nights," Bedroom Eyes never loses track of the pulsing heartbeat and passion for propulsive grooves that gives them such a vital edge. From the healing static burn of "Around" through to the final lovelorn, grunge gestalt of "Iris,"Turned Away shows itself ultimately to be an advanced balance of humors- swaying in the toss of its internal consonances and conflicts between bleeding edge guitars and downy, hums and harmonics, crossing-examining each without cracking it mirror opposite under pressure- swiveling in a stead display of balance on its nose without a quiver or questioning glance. On a self-constructed island of constant command, Bedroom Eyes can soak up the reverie of the moment despite the commotion around them, supping like a hummingbird drinking from a flower that's been tucked behind a girl's ear as she spins in elation on a carnival ride. Turned Away is nothing if not a substantially sweet turn to remember.
