Constellation Records’s Toronto mainstay Eric Chenaux is releasing his fifth album through the label with Skullsplitter, the follow-up to 2012’s excellent, critically praised Guitar & Voice. “Have I Lost My Eyes,” the lead track off the album (listen to the title track here), rolls out like a broken lullaby. Chenaux sings with hopes high in reunification — “We could try skydiving and watch the world uncurl” — drowned in a hole wicked enough to split skulls. The guitar work weeps in between verses and over a dial-tone-like metronome, with Chenaux pouring questions — “Have I lost my eyes?” — into an empty line deliberately taken off the hook.
The song’s four-panel video comes after teaming up with Eric Cazdyn, long-time friend and visual side car for Chenaux, to produce videos for all nine songs on the album. For this one, Cazdyn portrays Chenaux arriving home and briefly unpacking, walking slowly with his vision directed not 4ft. from his own. He’s in a dim, deep train of thought, asking if this is all a dream.
Skullsplitter is out February 17. Pre-orders are up now, and if you’re in France or London, you can check out Chenaux’s guitar and voice on tour.
• Eric Chenaux: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Eric-Chenaux/155636574621601
• Constellation Records: http://cstrecords.com