Across eight stunning and varied tracks, Raised By Eagles’ second album Diamonds in the Bloodstream manages to reassure and surprise at the same time. From fairly quiet acoustic singer-songwriter beginnings, RBE founder Luke Sinclair and his bandmates Nick O’Mara (lead guitar), Luke Richardson (bass) and Johnny Gibson (drums) have taken great strides in developing the kind of band that can take things from a hush to a roar and make you want to listen in closely the whole time. Much of the sounds are vintage in flavour, mixed and engineered by Roger Bergodaz to capture a live feel, but the emotions are always in the moment. Jackie, for example has the kind of sounds you might expect to hear coming out of the speakers of Sandman panel van belting down the coast in 1975, but the delivery captures the intensity of teenage first love just like being there. The understated delivery and instantly memorable hook of Nick O’Mara’s makeup song (as opposed to breakup song) Doorstep makes it the kind of universal song you’re likely to be whistling days later. With a built-for-vinyl playing time of thirty five minutes this record is never going to wear out its welcome and closing track Days Fall lifts the tempo and adrenaline in a way that will most likely have you flipping back to side one instantly. With two world-class country rock albums under their built, nurtured and developed out of Melbourne’s strong music and songwriting culture, we can only give this the strongest recommendation to the wider world.
