STACK MAGAZINE July Issue 2017 - By Jeff Jenkins

Raised By Eagles
I MUST BE SOMEWHERE 
(ABC Music / Universal)

After two acclaimed indie albums, Melbourne roots rockers Raised By Eagles have signed a record deal and delivered a swaggeringly assured third album. Fronted by two fine singers and guitarists - Luke Sinclair and Nick O'Mara (with production duties handled by Nick's cousin, Melbourne guitar legend Shane O'Mara) - the sound is classic Americana: no gadgets, no studio trickery, just real musicians playing real good songs on real instruments. Sounds almost revolutionary in 2017. Get this one on vinyl and file next to Ryan Adams, Jason Isbell and The Dingoes. Yep, it's that good. 'I Must Be Somewhere': Raised By Eagles have arrived - Jeff Jenkins

★★★★ ROLLING STONE 25 MAY 2017 - By Gareth Hipwell

Raised By Eagles
I MUST BE SOMEWHERE 
(ABC Music / Universal)

Melbourne alt-country stylists return with mesmerising third LP - In four years, the twin songwriting force of Luke Sinclair and Nick O’Mara has matured to a lustrous finish. Richer guitar textures proliferate here, while Sinclair’s inflection is charged with uniquely Australian pathos throughout (the title track). There’s freewheeling West Coast country-rock in “Nowhere (You Wanna Run)“, vital Seventies roots-rock in “Night Wheels”, and breathless poignancy in “Dreamer”. Lyrically, a minor theme centred on modest hopes and ambitions thwarted casts an affecting light over proceedings (“By Now”). RBE are in good company with the likes of local alt-country luminaries Halfway and Tracy McNeil - Gareth Hipwell

★★★★ THE AUSTRALIAN 24 June 2017 - By Polly Coufos

Raised By Eagles
I MUST BE SOMEWHERE 
(ABC Music / Universal)

Melbourne four-piece Raised By Eagles has grown steadily by the album to a point where all components sound as if meshed in a fraternal bond. Whether the songs on their third release come from the pen of Luke Sinclair or Nick O’Mara or are a collaboration between the two, they bubble out warm, fresh and ever so touching, as though pouring from the one spring. Similarly, their voices are so alike you are not immediately aware of who is singing. This aids the unifying mood of the album, which is a 10-song study of love, loss and longing. The mostly relaxed tempos invite reflection on the part of both the writers and the listener.

In Dreamer Sinclair repeats the line “time is a stealer”, summing up the mood perfectly before O’Mara chimes in with a killer Ry Cooder-influenced slide guitar solo. Their love of Cooder can be heard at several points, the tension on the strings and the threatening oversupply of power matching perfectly the overwhelming weight of hearts heavy with tough decisions and regrets.

The title track plays like a homage to Paul Kelly, unmistakably as Australian as a Sidney Nolan painting. There is space, considered economy and details that show the singer searching for answers to questions that cannot be found this side of the sun. Their voices join soaring, wordless in an extended outro as they continue the search. The breaks come musically as they kick it up and make a handsome racket showing the muscle that is at hand, should it be required. Raised by Eagles are an energetic rock band, and using this style as a respite from the overriding melancholy plays to their strengths, while showing just how versatile they can be - Polly Coufos

★★★★ THE MUSIC 12 May 2017 - By Steve Bell

Raised By Eagles
I MUST BE SOMEWHERE 
(ABC Music / Universal)

The third longplayer by Melbourne Americana exponents Raised By Eagles builds strongly on the template they've been consolidating for years now, marked by a notable step up in both songwriting and production. This progress is immediately apparent in powerful streamlined opener Shape & Line, with the album diversifying to show more strengths such as the title track's existential balladry, the '80s classic rock vibe of Night Wheels and the beautifully restrained Everyday Everyday, which sounds like a lost classic from Ryan Adams' songbook. They may be somewhere now, but they're definitely going places. - Steve Bell

★★★★ BMA MAGAZINE 13 July 2017 - By Rory McCartney

Raised By Eagles
I MUST BE SOMEWHERE 
(ABC Music / Universal)

Melbourne band Raised By Eagles is bursting with creativity. The country quartet has released three long players since 2013, with the latest being I Must Be Somewhere, and achieved two wins at The Age Music Victoria Awards along the way.

The band scores well in both musicianship and songwriting skills. While just a guitar, bass and drum outfit, with no keyboard and nothing fancier than a lap steel, Raised By Eagles has crafted some beautiful tunes with intricate, catchy guitar work. Opener ‘Shape & Line’ starts with a soulful whine and a feeling of depth, with lots of spaces between the notes, before guitarists Luke Sinclair and Nick O’Mara let slip the halters and give their axes a free run. It, together with the similarly rocked-up ‘Night Wheels’, with its prominent reverb features, are album highlights.

Elsewhere, tracks take a quieter line. In ‘Every Night’, and feature track ‘Gold Rush Blues’, the words carry more weight, due to their being used with economy. The title track also uses the principal of ‘less is more’, as it flows with a casual gentleness, floating by with the high twang of the lap steel, and only gaining strength towards its close, speeding its departure. ‘Heartbreaker’ ends with a surprising softness, leaving the story in midair, and there is a similar cleverness in ‘Everyday, Everyday’, with words left hanging, as though to continue the thread of the song beyond its natural close.

Overall, there is strength in the simplicity of the lyrics, choosing just enough of the right words to get the message across. There are lots of little snapshots in the words too; easily relatable, which come together in jigsaw fashion, with a certain poetry of their own - Rory McCartney

★★★½ THE AGE / SMH 01 JUNE 2017 - By Craig Mathieson

Raised By Eagles
I MUST BE SOMEWHERE 
(ABC Music / Universal)

On the title track to their third album, Melbourne alt-country quartet Raised By Eagles change the landscape of yearning. "I'm moving through the night, a broken satellite, just looking for you," sings frontman Luke Sinclair, and as the song progresses the pedal guitar is supplanted by wide, ringing notes that move the song's emotional co-ordinates. "Wish I was where you are, but I ain't no shooting star, I'll never find you," concedes Sinclair, and the sense of distance has the elegiac regret of U2 circa The Joshua Tree. Plainly the band – Sinclair, guitarist Nick O'Mara, bassist Luke Richardson, and drummer Johnny Gibson – have come a long way since appearing just four years ago. They are by no means consistent: there are times on I Must Be Somewhere, such as Heartbreaker, where they make the prosaic pretty and simply pay fitting tribute to the canon that informs them, but the best songs have the ability to transform your expectations within their running time. There's the serendipitous Every Night and the despairing Gold Rush Blues, and they transcend any genre - Craig Mathieson

★★★★ 100PERCENT ROCK MAGAZINE 18 June 2017 - By Shane Pinnegar

Raised By Eagles
I MUST BE SOMEWHERE 
(ABC Music / Universal)

Clearly acolytes of The Church and The Band (which is only ever a good thing), Raised By Eagles third album is a rambling, sprawling serve of pastorally inclined Americana, built at the place where country and folk influences are just as important as rock and blues (or more), and to think: they hail not from the Appalachians, but Melbourne, Australia!

Storytelling and emotion are the prize at the end of this rainbow, Raised By Eagles’ songs are rich in human emotion, drenched with desire and dreams, and it’s hard to imagine that for a group only four years old, they are accomplished enough to not only play and write this well, but also to have taken their act to Nashville itself and won over the locals.

There’s a wistful sentiment to tracks like I Must Be Somewhere, Dreamer and Everyday, Everyday: the listener is left in no doubt that Raised By Eagles has something important to say, and there’s little doubt that wherever they are, they’ll be somewhere better yet by the time the next album comes around - Shane Pinnegar

COUNTRY UPDATE Issue 85, May 2017

Raised By Eagles
I MUST BE SOMEWHERE 
(ABC Music / Universal)

Three albums deep, songwriter-vocalists Nick O’Mara and Luke Sinclair have arrived at something close to perfect. Previous outing Diamonds in the Bloodstream (2015) was a glorious show of alt. country style and poise. But with Somewhere, RBE up the ante with so many richly textured arrangements: O’Mara’s dusky ‘Every Night’ features a stunning array of sounds, including ‘a baritone electric, a 12-string electric, a 12-string acoustic…and a ghost of a resonator.’ It’s as immersive as that sounds. From stirring album opener ‘Shape & Line’ onward, Sinclair, O’Mara and band set about constructing 10 masterful compositions, each peppered with captivatingly lyrical meditations on life and love delivered with unaffected, breathless honesty and feeling (‘I Must Be Somewhere’). There’s timeless West Coast country-rock in ‘Nowhere (You Wanna Run)’, irresistible 70s indulgence in ‘Night Wheels’, and a deeply affecting soft-rock plaint in ‘Dreamer’. Like fellow Melbournians Tracy McNeil & The GoodLife, RBE prove that the local alt. country scene is apt to just keep on getting better.

RHYTHMS MAGAZINE May/June Issue 2017 - By Chris Familton

Raised By Eagles
I MUST BE SOMEWHERE 
(ABC Music / Universal)

Album number three for Melbourne’s Raised By Eagles and a further refinement of their lush, wistful and yearning country rock. Ironing out some of the creases of their earlier releases has resulted in a unified sound across the songs which are mostly only a few shades either side of mid-tempo. So much of it floats by on a warm breeze that to really appreciate the nuances in the production and their playing, the volume should be turned up high.

As players they share a lightness of touch and aesthetic with the likes of Steve Gunn, Mark Knopfler and William Tyler, if a little more dusty back-roads and suburban summer nights. The pedal steel in particular is a really highlight, gently conjuring up weeping country emotions. There is also a melancholic mood that pervades the album, riding on a nostalgic, heartache vibe but more often than not wrapped up in optimism. This is another assured release from the band, one that shines brightest in its subtleties. - Chris Familton