A hot new Cowichan Valley band is holding a CD release party in Lake Cowichan at the end of the month.

People get into the Dead Eyes Open concert on October 30 at Centennial Hall for $10, while zombies and other Halloween characters can get in for $8.

The new CD is Apocalypse Through The Eyes Of..., on the Australian label Dead Famous Artists.

The band features Lake Cowichan’s Chris Anderson on drums, with Duncan-area musicians Matt Gladman on guitar and backup vocals, lead vocalist Justin Hadda, Stefan Renaud on guitar and Tyler Hiltunen on bass. Back-up bass player Matt Harder will be filling in for Hiltunen at the Lake Cowichan gig.

“With the two ticket prices, we are encouraging people to dress up for Halloween,” said Gladman. “I think it’s going to be a great atmosphere.”

It will be extra special for drummer Anderson, who lives at Skutz Falls and went to school in Lake Cowichan. “I know a lot of my friends will be there and I can’t wait for the show,” he said during an interview with the Gazette. “We wanted to have our CD release party in the valley, so why not in Lake Cowichan.”

Dead Eyes Open hasn’t been together that long, forming less than a year ago, but the band is enjoying some early success with the recording deal struck in July and plenty of concerts on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland.

For tunesmith Gladman, it’s been a longer haul. He began working on the music even before the band formed.

“It’s been more than a year,” he said. “I started recording in July of last year in my basement and it just got done a few months ago. That CD started as a script, but it became these songs.”

“When you’re listening to it, you gotta read the lyrics,” added Anderson, who along with the other band members has a hand in the songs. “It tells a story.”

Gladman said it’s a collaborative effort, with he and Anderson working on the songs and the rest of the band having its input as well.

Shortly after the musicians got together as a band, getting a name was one of their main focuses. One day Gladman’s dad heard the term dead eyes open and suggested that as a possible name.

“Once we got a band name, everything changed,” said Gladman. “It helped give us an identity.”

Apocalypse Through The Eyes Of... is described by the band as “a post-apocalyptic view of New York City decimated by a virus outbreak causing its victims to rise from the dead and feed off the living, it’s clear that this is an artistic and visionary album of colossal proportions.”

Heavy stuff indeed, accentuated by their musical influences and aggressive guitar rifts and vocals.

The song Newspapers and Empty Streets has been getting air time on the radio.

Dead Eyes Open is playing two gigs in Nanaimo before the Lake Cowichan concert, then after a three-month breather they head on a 17-show trip across Canada that includes stops in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto and Ottawa.

Advance tickets for the October 30 show are available at Chainsaw Sally’s in Lake Cowichan.

For more about Dead Eyes Open, go to www.myspace/deadeyesopenmusic or myspace.com/deadfamousartists.