Listening to Eyes of the Lord, it's no surprise that the band is comprised of musicians who have also played in such hardcore and metal acts as 100 Demons, Twitching Tongues, and Terror. 2017's Call it War was a perfect debut for Eyes of the Lord, showcasing their penchant for groove-driven metallic hardcore that leans into thrash in all the right moments. The group just announced the forthcoming release of Misery Feels Like Home, their sophomore album. You can check out a few cuts from the record below:
I recently hung out at The Pit Recording Studio in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles with its owner and operator, Eyes of the Lord guitarist Taylor Young (he also plays drums in Nails and Twitching Tongues, among other bands) and since Misery Feels Like Home is about to be released, I gave him a little homework assignment. In this piece, Taylor gives me the rundown of some of the key groups that helped inform the Eyes of the Lord sound.
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Eyes of the Lord originally started as a tribute to CTHC and Troycore in the same breath. Colin [Young] and I met Bruce [LePage] in 2012 when he tour-managed a tour that Twitching Tongues was on, and we hit it off very quickly. A few months later after we talked a bunch, he mentioned doing a band together and we excitedly agreed. The original idea was to do the band with Buddy [Armstrong] from Stigmata and Mike Stack from Dying Breed—who are both legends—but the distance between the 5 of us made it not really work and slowed it to a halt.
We brought in Martin [Stewart] from Terror since he’s local to us and a guitar machine, and [Closed Casket Activies owner] Justin Louden since we always talked about doing a band together ever since he started putting out records for our bands. The first EP took us 4 years to write and finally came out in 2017, then we wrote the new LP over the last year.
Carlos asked if I could pick 5 bands that helped shaped Eyes of the Lord. I thought about it and chose the ones below. —Taylor Young
Dying Breed
They wrote one of the hardest records on the planet, and we hoped to write music even a fraction as hard as them. If albums could fight, theirs would definitely be in prison for life. Troy/Albany always reminded me of Hartford, and I feel like sonically Troycore has a lot in common with CTHC.
Dmize
The last 3 songs they wrote are some of the best metallic hardcore songs out there. They went from being pretty standard (but still great) NYHC to this borderline technical metal band with crazy riffs and vocal patterns.
100 Demons
Well no shit, Sherlock. This is one of the bands that made me want to play hardcore at all, so leaving it off here because Bruce is in the band would be a lie. Obviously we never wanted Eyes of the Lord to be this band, but he is a part of it and we’ve studied them, so there’s only so far you can go.
Demolition Hammer
Their last two records are big influences on this record. Both are just hard the whole time and unrelenting. Sean Martin and Bruce turned me onto their third record and you can almost hear the root of CTHC buried in there.
Negative Approach
To me this is the first hardcore band that had a person singing that sounds akin to Bruce. It’s also one of his favorites and we covered "Tied Down" at the end of the new record, which Bruce has done in pretty much all his bands. I’d be lying if I said I took any of this directly as influence but I think NA paved the way for this style to exist.
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Tagged: disgrace, eyes of the lord, nails, twitching tongues
