The New Eye Am Track “Cryptomnesia” is an Undeniable Ass Beater
Nine months ago, the world learned of a supergroup featuring former Type O Negative members Kenny Hickey and Johnny Kelly, along with Crowbar frontman Kirk Windstein and bassist Todd Strange. In that time, the excitement surrounding the act had gestated from a simple concept into a super exciting new outfit with the release of their first single. But today, with the release of their second track “Cryptomnesia,” it really doesn’t feel too early to say this band’s looking like a very real bringer of bangers.
Featuring an immediately gripping sound that’s equal parts dark and melodic/heavy and hopeful/doomy and ambitious, “Cryptomnesia” feels as if Soundgarden wrote a Black Sabbath tune. It’s got an interesting dynamic that when compared to their first single, “Dreams Always Die With The Sun,” starts to shed light on the band’s cohesive sound.
For Windstein, the fact that the track sort of opens up the group’s sonic color palette even more is one of the more exciting parts of its release today.
“I really think ‘Cryptomnesia’ is a perfect example of a new band finding it’s own style and sound. I love ‘Dreams Always Die With The Sun,’ but we had a lot more time putting together ‘Cryptomnesia,’ and the end result is awesome! The song is very hypnotic to me. I never get tired of hearing it, and that’s a great thing!”
In all honesty, there’s parts of Eye Am’s growing sound that are a little hard to describe since it’s still coming together before our eyes as listeners. The fact that we’re getting to witness the band sort of figure it out with each new single is pretty exciting.
Couple that with the fact that these guys are all known quantities in their own right and you have a band with massive potential. I mean, who knew Hickey would sound like a doom/sludge metal version of Chris Cornell behind the mic?!
Speaking of where this track fits for the band, Hickey said he and his bandmates were ridiculously excited with where things are going for Eye Am — and that “Cryptomnesia” is the hammer to break things wide open.
“I feel that ‘Cryptomnesia’ is ambitious and really widens the pallet for Eye Am moving forward. It wasn’t designed with that in mind it just sort of grew from a central riff like any other song, but then just spread outward-eventually incorporating acoustic guitars, multiple lead guitar breaks and key changes. I think it came out quite powerful and we’re really proud of it. Now we’ve seem to have set a pretty high standard for ourselves and I feel like we’re going to have to not just maintain it but keep pushing the envelope to see where it leads us. Discovering new sounds and taking risks go hand in hand. Sometimes it works and sometimes it hits the wall but it’s always more interesting than taking the obvious route. – Kenny Hickey
“I don’t want our music to be one dimensional. I don’t want it to be just dark and doomy or always heavy I want it to be both light and dark and dynamic and I think ‘Cryptomnesia’ really captures all of that. I really love the way it moves freely between opposing movements of heavy guitars and sudden melodic key changes and even acoustic segments. It’s a moody song and it goes a lot of places in the five minutes or so it takes to play out. It feels more like a trip than a song to me. I don’t get tired of listening to it.”
We’ve known for a while that Eye Am have been working on new music in the studio, so until we know more about their debut release (hopefully coming next year…), we just have to wait for the drips and drabs of new music. And I for one can’t wait to hear more.
