Big Eyes has been through a lot of changes lately, and somehow or another this has resulted in Stake My Claim, their third and best Big Eyes release to date. Geographically, they’ve moved from Seattle back to their native Brooklyn. They’ve also switched back to Don Giovani Records after releasing their sophomore album on Grave Mistake. The biggest change has been the overhaul of their members. All of them are new with the exception of lead singer and guitarist Kait Eldridge….and they’ve gone from a three piece to a four piece.

The album starts off with the title track “Stake My Claim”. It is easily their heaviest song to date and benefits greatly from the addition of a second guitar. The new fullness helps the song drift towards old school hard rock, but with enough of a pop affect to clearly be a Big Eyes song.

Stake My Claim has hooks for days. The LP is a wonderful Molotov cocktail of punk, pop, classic rock, and indie ready to explode on playing. The brevity of the album is the epitome of leaving the listener wanting more. The ten songs go by in under a half an hour and never outstay their welcome. Eldridge has trimmed her songs down to their necessary components nothing more nothing less.  The shortest song, “Curse of Tides”, clocks in at merely 50 seconds of greatness.

My favorite track on the album “Leave this Town”, is basically a straight up aural dopamine injection to the jugular, but seriously, just listen to the whole damn album.