MANY EYES-"MYSTIC CORD" AND "REVELATION"
The unfortunate and contentious dissolution of metalcore legends Every Time I Die has a silver lining, at least, and that is that the former members have not gone gently into that good night but continue to body slam us in one way or another. Many Eyes, helmed by former ETID vocalist Keith Buckley, have now released two singles in “Mystic Cord” and “Revelation” that comfortably sit sonically between ETID and another of Buckley’s projects in the supergroup The Damned Things. This makes perfect sense, too, when you consider that as Buckley stated in an October 2023 interview with Brooklyn Vegan, after Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta encouraged Buckley to meet what became the other two-thirds of Many Eyes in Charlie and Nick Bellmore, they bonded over “the alternative scene that we kind of grew up in, and we mixed that with the hardcore stuff that we had known.“ The early returns—which we’ll discuss shortly in more detail—are very promising. Further, for Buckley, it signals a fresh start, and in a much bigger and more important way than simply “a new band.” Similar to the journey of Caleb Shomo of Beartooth, Buckley has done a tremendous amount of work on himself, starting with the major decision to face his demons—or in this case devil—in alcohol. Though it may be tempting to read the lyrics to “Revelation” as referring to possible bad blood from the ETID break-up, in that same Brooklyn Vegan interview Buckley stated:
This was about me wrestling with the anger that I had, but not towards anyone specifically; it was about the idea of alcoholism and what it had done to my life and that it put all my relationships in jeopardy, and that eventually it just came to identify my relationships entirely. So I kind of anthropomorphized the vice of alcoholism, and then obviously because I was reading the Bible a lot, I used a metaphor of just seeing it as the devil itself, which, the more I came to think about it, the more it actually felt true. It really was the most powerful evil that I ever faced, and it had so many different forms and it was so sneaky and it was just such a liar. I felt like I could take all the anger and re-channel it into something that I could actually control and defeat, which was alcoholism, and it’s not just beating it and moving on; it’s beating it and facing it and showing it to other people.
Thematically, Many Eyes reflects this profound shift in Buckley’s life and worldview:
As time went on and I got more into my sobriety, I realized that I could start writing about the positive things moving forward instead of the negative things behind me. I realized that that came with the patience of the divine timing; I don’t know why it took so long, but when the lyrics were needed, I was at a position where I could really convey myself in a way that explains that I’ve overcome things, and I’m only looking forward, as a way to help people and to move on. There’s nothing in my view that’s materialistic, I don’t care about trying to play a Super Bowl halftime show, I’m not putting a band together so I could do things that I’ve never done before. I just really feel like this is where I’m supposed to be, and these lyrics that I have that came out are all about positive change, and trying to get that across to other people who need to make positive changes.
I can and will always support that.
“Mystic Cord” feels like a more straightforward version of something from ETID’s From Parts Unknown era, a song that is ready-made to cause a circle pit. It’s a high energy track that scratches all the right itches. “Revelation,” with a music video reminiscent of Nirvana’s ”Smells Like Teen Spirit,” pulls precisely zero punches sounding at times quite a bit like the beardier end of Every Time I Die’s spectrum, the heavier parts setting up the more polished chorus that showcases Buckley’s singing and the modernized 90s rock influences Buckley highlights in the aforementioned interview. The chorus also has to my ear the ghost of some 2000s Killswitch Engage-type metalcore choruses in there musically if not as much vocally. The part after the second time through the chorus and to close out the song—particularly that riff—would have to be my favorite part of the song; it reminds me so much of something and I’ve been racking my brain but can’t come up with the song. I’m going to source this one to the Comments section—help me out! Buckley’s line “I rebuilt this heart by hand” calls to mind something Mark Freeman has talked about with recovery from mental illness in the concept of rebuilding the engine while driving the car—driving the car being living one’s life and the engine being what powers that life. Will the engine be designed to run on the fuel of fear and anxiety, “a reactive engine” that takes one places one does not want to go, or can it be re-designed to run cleaner and more proactively, fueled by values and things one cares about?
According to Alternative Press, the band’s debut album will be released by Jamey Jasta’s Perseverance Media Group at a future date. I am eager to hear what more they have in store for us.