PRETTIEST EYES
Vol. 3
Castle Face

Prettiest Eyes is like the house band in the elevator to hell. Think of the flames rising around as you descend into the depths—drinking from this lake of fire is actually refreshing when you know you’re damned. And really, who isn’t damned these days anyway? Alan Vega’s spectre clearly infiltrated the recording process here—this is an album Suicide might have made in 2019, turning the daily into a nightmare with grim fiber-optic clarity. “Another Earth” deposits the listener in the opium den of 21st century living, with terror always on the threshold but unwilling to reveal itself entirely. Then the siren call of ‘Marihuana’ erupts into the panic, as the lull and pulse of the album washes over the listener with anxious riffs and floods of feedback. The through-line of uneasiness and the tension driving Prettiest Eyes is the strange feeling of living through absurdity and coming to enjoy it, and the exhaustion that comes with listening to this record is exhilarating. No sense seems to be spared in the process. The whiplash keyboards, the roaring guitars, and the avalanche of drums assault your psyche, and there’s no escape—at least not for the forty minutes til Vol. 3’s finish.

—Nathan Martel

PRETTIEST EYES’ VOL. 3 IS OUT MON., JUNE 24, ON CASTLE FACE.