Dinosaur Eyelids - "Down A River" ...

The college radio station where I DJ has a bin of promo CDs marked free. And this sounds great, but when I dig through the crate I’m reminded of the time my dad came home with leftovers and offered me a Styrofoam box, which I opened, only to find meatless rib bones.  But last week in that free bin I found more than the proverbial gristle on one of them bones. I came across “Down A River” by Dinosaur Eyelids. Now, the fact that Dinosaur was in the name hinted at heaviness, but who knows, they could have been using it ironically and actually been some freak folk outfit. Thankfully, they’re not. The Lids, as they call themselves remind me of Roadsaw, carved up by MTV’s Buzzbin. They take stoner rock and strain it through a nineties alternative filter and come up with an album that is more hit than miss.

The nineties influences are in full force on “Show Me Your Way Out” which sounds like a lost Toadies outtake. But the clean guitars of those polished alternative rock records are roughed up a bit and you know these guys were listening to some of their dad’s records. “Paranoid Schizophrenia” is a full bore stoner rock track, with lyrics like “You don’t pay rent when you live in the sky/you don’t fear death when you’ve already died” gargled over thick guitars and some nice drums. “Across the Sea” slows things down a bit and is a fair representation of the slower songs on the album, of which there are a few. These might not appeal to all fuzz heads, but they never come off like the worst of those balladry alternative bands.

If the guys in Lids grown their hair out and scruff up a bit they might find themselves on Tee Pee or Small Stone. Check them out now and you can say I’ve been listening to them since… “Down A River” came out in 2011 but they’ve got a new CD coming out in the fall of 2012.  Oh, and Dean Ween approves so they got that going for them, which is nice.

Words: Justin Gish

Official Website