Las Vegas Weekly

A gift of Diamonds

Photo: Fred Morledge

Eyes Like Diamonds unveiled a new song on Christmas Day, but the band isn’t entirely sure yet whether fans see the gift as something pleasant or as a piece of coal in their musical stocking.

Album

"Frequencies" MP3s

• It's Not Easy Being King

• More on Eyes Like Diamonds

“It’s Not Easy Being King,” which was released on the band’s MySpace profile and is now available on LasVegasWeekly.com, is the first song from ELD’s upcoming EP, Frequencies. It debuts what lead singer Diego Perez describes as a more mainstream, more ambient sound — with 75 percent less scream.

“We don’t know if we’re going to have a lot of the same fan base,” he concedes. “We hope to keep all our fans, of course, but I think (the sound’s) changed that much. I think the metal side might be a little shocked by it all.”

The band, however, wasn’t shocked by the shift. It evolved naturally, Perez says. “We all sort of sat back and listened to our last record. We thought, ‘This sounds like everyone else, or at least it touches the sound of everyone else.’ We’re just not really too stoked about that. We want to find ourselves in our music. We want to grow in our own terms.”

Perez concedes the new sound takes inspiration from bands like Lower Definition, Circa Survive and Strata, but says it better reflects the sextet’s musical tastes and personalities.

Eyes Like Diamonds plans to stream Frequencies in its entirety on their MySpace profile New Year’s Day. An official release party for the EP tentatively is scheduled for early February.

Perez expects this sound to stick and bring in new fans. Guitarist Mason Wright agrees, saying response since Christmas has been overwhelmingly positive.

Adds Perez, “Musically we find it a lot smarter, and a lot more fun.”