Review
Les Yeux De La Tête
Mosca Violenta

Head Records (2013) Eli Zeger

Les Yeux De La Tête – Mosca Violenta cover artwork
Les Yeux De La Tête – Mosca Violenta — Head Records, 2013

Jazz metal three-piece Les Yeux De La Tête’s (translation: The Eyes Of The Head) second full-length release, Mosca Violenta, is a vicious 11-song steamroller of sludgy riffs, raucous drum patterns, and avant-garde saxophone lines. For a guitarless, sparse album, MV is surprisingly theatrical and fascinating.

The trio’s doom jazz masterpiece opens with the demonic ska song “Fubar.” “Soutane Of Swing” is a dirty, free jazz dish with a saxophonic zest reminiscent of seminal blowers Ornette Coleman and John Zorn. The symphonic “Sloomer” is definitely one of the heaviest songs that my ears have ever been aroused by. “Les Rognons” is a harsh, mathy track that draws the listener in with its gritty bass, but oddly provides a sense of comfort with its atmospheric, jazzy sax lines.

Mosca Violenta proves that jazz has no boundaries. Whether you’re a purist who ritually grooves to Coltrane’s Live At The Village Vanguard, a stoner jamming out to your Doritos-covered Medeski Martin & Wood vinyl, or a metal-lover headbanging to the epicness of Les Yeux De La Tête or other jazz metal artists like The Dillinger Escape Plan or The Number Twelve Looks Like You, there’s a genre of jazz for everyone.

9.2 / 10Eli Zeger • January 20, 2014

Les Yeux De La Tête – Mosca Violenta cover artwork
Les Yeux De La Tête – Mosca Violenta — Head Records, 2013

Recently-posted album reviews

Personality Cult

Dilated
Dirtnap (2025)

I had a hard time starting this review. I can’t help coming back to the fact that it sounds like Marked Men. It does, maybe intentionally so, as Dilated is the second of Personality Cult’s albums that is produced by Jeff Burke of Marked Men and Radioactivity. But I don’t necessarily like to say a band sounds like another band … Read more

Various Artists

Her Head's On Fire/Arms Like Roses - Split
Double Helix (2025)

Her Head’s On Fire (NY, NY) and Arms Like Roses (New Haven, CT) team up on this split 7” with two new tracks (one each band) of post-hardcore tunes that are both massive and melodic in their own distinct ways. "Universal" is the track from Her Head’s On Fire. Recorded by the band’s guitarist Jeff Dean, "Universal" came from the … Read more

Dead Bars

All Dead Bars Go To Heaven
Iodine (2025)

Dead Bars has a unique talent of taking the everyday, the experiences you see and live all the time, and shining a new light on them to make them personal and interesting. I've written about it before, yet it's my job to say this again and to make it interesting. It's what Dead Bars does, so it only seems fitting … Read more