Don Ugly strikes gold on debut track, "Hazy Eyes"
With its official release on March 10th, 2021, Don Ugly has finally put forth his debut single, “Hazy Eyes”. We are absolutely loving it! Do yourselves a huge favor and read along for our featured review of the track, as well as a background on the artist.
Don Ugly, also known as singer and songwriter Kash Erickson, is currently based out of Jacksonville, Florida in which he’s succeeding at crafting lyrically diverse and instrumentally catchy tunes. Taking influences from the greats like Deftones, Father John Misty, and Tom Waits, Don has cooked up a multi genre track that we haven’t been able to put down.
Self-described as “dark country acoustic ballads, indie alternative, with psychedelic avant rock impressions”, I think the question we can immediately ask ourselves is where do we sign up? On “Hazy Eyes” specifically, we think this was a wonderful dive into the music scene on the artist’s part. Loving his influences as personal heroes of our own, our judgements tend to lean on the slightly stricter side, however he’s blown out any expectations we had and now we’re fans for life.
While the artist is currently solo, his live performance is supposedly a spectacle “that consists of subliminal storytelling”. While he is only one man on stage, his usage of loop pedals, guitar, and his divine vocals will almost make you forget it’s just him. If there’s any goals we happened to have for this year, it’s to witness this performance in person. Additionally, and we’ll just put it out there right now, we’d love some new tunes as well in the same vein of “Hazy Eyes”.
It should come as no surprise to the reader, but yes, we’re highly recommending all the listens of this single. It’s inventive, groovy, and tells a compelling story within its deep lyricism. Considering that all of the sounds you’ll hear on this one song came from one person is mind boggling, but we suppose it goes to show that you Don Ugly isn’t just a pretty voice behind the microphone, he’s so much more.
Lastly, we’d love to wrap this up by saying how effortlessly the song picked up throughout its listen. Not to say it was dull or anything in the first half, but layer by layer being added in the background eventually ended on an incredibly high note towards the middle and end. We don’t want to spoil the song, if that’s even possible really, but take our word for it and check it out ASAP.
With that being said, make sure to follow along, listen, and keep up with Don Ugly by clicking all the necessary links below. Enjoy and stay tuned!
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