Black Eyes - Hostile Design 12" record

Black Eyes - Hostile Design 12" record "On “Hostile Design,” the band resumes their work as musical chiropractors for the American psyche. Across its six songs, and in less than a half hour, Black Eyes offers percussive tit-for-tat, bounding between dub grooves and in-the-soil rhythms. Bass lines pulse, synthesizers wash, saxophones squeal. And McElroy and Martin-McCormick perform lyrical counterpoint, trading images, idioms, symbols and scripture — sometimes overlapping like dueling street preachers. The pair conjure images of D.C. Metro lines and holes drilled into heads; consider the sacred and profane; and nod to medieval poems and fragments of traditional songs from Greece, Gaza and Haiti. During the writing process, the pair found the shape of the vocals and filled them with lyrics. Sometimes words bubbled up during practice and could be hard to shake — a source of frustration and inspiration. “It’s a cool clue, because they point to an interpretation, but also lead you into an