The Eyes in the Heat popped up on my radar the other day with the video for their new single ‘Amateur’.  I know nothing about them apart from this song and a few teaser snippets on the Juno pre-order page for their as-yet-unreleased EP.  Amateur is a sparse and spooky track that begins with guitar string plinking followed by a simple yet insistant bassline.  Bernard Sumner once said that Joy Division was enamored with Kraftwerk, attempting to replicate their robotic, dehumanized sound without the aid of synthesizers or drum machines.  The Eyes in Heat pulls this trick off successfully with a hypnotic rhythm and haunting echo drenched vocals.  They are dark, spare and beautiful.  They are a minimal cold wave concoction of post- disco discordant guitar sprinkled with casio beat blip toms.  If I were 16-years-old I would want to be this band.  I would buy the album, the t-shirt and have the singer’s haircut.  I may do this any way.

-Dope Werewolf