When a band has so many influences as France’s Klone, it’s normally causes one to call a bluff. You see, most bands do look to styles of music outside of metal for inspiration, they just don’t telegraph it as much…and they don’t make such a strong case for it in their bio. In the case of Klone, their overarching influences (metal, jazz, avant-garde) are both obvious and made proper use of on their Eye of Needle EP. If they didn’t use them so well, they’d look like fools, and we can’t have that.
Sonically, the primary reference point for this 3-song EP is probably Textures, who also have the same progressive permutations as Klone. Yet, Klone doesn’t have the same hard edge as Textures, preferring to dress their songs with radio-friendly vocal patterns and choruses, as heard on “Eye of Needle Part I.” The heavier portions of “Eye of Needle Part II” demonstrate how effortlessly the band can shift into a different mode, something that is painfully obvious on “Monster,” a song that does a good job of leveling off the EP in atmospheric fashion, and is probably the best song of the lot.
Bands like Klone usually have a difficult time drawing a wide spread of listeners for the simple fact they don’t do one thing well. They do many things well, and on Eye of Needle, it’s jam-packed into three songs. Methinks they’ll have a much wider playing field at their disposal for a full-length.
(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com)