Artist:     Lazy Eye

Album:     Pocket The Black

Label:     Independent

Release Date:     09/16/2016

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BUY DIGITAL

BUY PHYSICAL

Lazy Eye is a three-piece blues outfit from Australia, a country where the blues is in the ascendency and the band itself has consistently picked up national awards for its music. With Pocket The Black it’s fairly easy to see why this popularity has been earned.

All ten tracks are written by the band members which features Evan Whetter on vocals, keys and harp; Mario Marino on drums and Erica Graf with some very fine guitar chops and licks. In 2016, the band was the first from southern Oz to make it to the Memphis IBC where they were particularly well received and added a gig at the BB King club on Beale Street before rerunning to their home-base.

Overall, this album is a bit of old-fashioned, old-school blues with a light, swinging live groove and a well-executed grasp of the music. Powerfully fuelled by the soaring sound of Whetter’s B3, Graf’s fretwork is neatly crafted, pushing through the roaring organ sound when needed. Vocals are mostly shared between the members and show a clear grasp of the fundamentals of gritty, gripping delivery and soulful blues demands. This is a band that has quality and purpose at its core and an album that has already picked up at least one regional association award down-under and is short-listed for album of the year in the 2017 Australian Blues Music Awards.

—Iain Patience