Songs You Need: The Blaze’s “EYES” is a loverlorn summer anthem

The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.

When The Blaze first emerged in 2016 their music videos were so impressive and cinematic in their scope that one of them went on to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The fact that new song "EYES" comes with nothing more than a video of the French electronic duo performing live could suggest a pivot away from the widescreen dreams of six years ago, and more toward a purely musical spectacle. More realistically, it would seem, is that the song arrives ahead of a summer of live dates and this is merely a teaser of what's coming to festival main stages in the coming months.

As previews go, "EYES" is an effective reminder of cousins Guillaume and Jonathan Alric's ability to stitch a subtle feeling of melancholy into the kind of outsized house beats required to get your name into the big font on a festival poster. There's a pulsing beat that runs throughout, while the Alrics' vocals bring the pining via the same pitched down effects they utilised on 2018 album Dancehall. The central ache at the heart of the song is that of a romantic longing. "I closed my eyes for so long, Since we danced so free," they pine from behind their digitally manipulated microphones. There's a raw simplicity to the emotions that marry nicely with the speaker-rattling synths, promising to lace at least one festival moment this summer with a little sadness.