”The Sleep Of Monsters Produces Reason’ is a painting by Goya: As places to start that is a good one for new Finnish band Sleep Of Monsters and their dense, obscure, esoteric world but hugely accessible sound. Go take a look. Back? Good.
Lead crooner Ike Vil, and yes he most definitely is a crooner, used to lend his rich, world weary tones to the Babylon Whores. If that doesn’t mean you’re not already off searching for where to buy this then here’s a quick reason or two why the Babylon Whores mattered: They were magic. They were the punk alleyway mystics, the jester at the feast who knew more than the king, razor edge steppers flicking deeply esoteric death rock from low slung guitars in backstreet bars as the world burned. And every now and then their flair for the poetic shone out with devastatingly honest emotion. Metal met the goth-poet older brother of The Wildhearts in a fin-de-siecle whisky waltz in a shitty basement bar.
Twelve years after their ‘Death In The West’ fade out, someone called Sleep Of Monsters walks down into that rundown bar, rat god on their shoulder, thin mongrel dog at their side, sly smile on their handsome face, but that look, that unmistakable look glinting beneath dark brows. You think no, it can’t be.… But after the intro, the triumvirate of female voices singing ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’, ‘Nihil Nihil Nihil’ burns in and you know the traveller is returned.
Sleep Of Monsters are Babylon Whores wearing a leather biker jacket battered and weathered and aged by twelve years. Their soul is there, the base sound, but there are miles of influences, new sounds and inflections that make this band Sleep Of Monsters. There is a swirl of Pink Floyd in the way the female voices envelop the guitar melodies, a jagged stiletto stamp in the beast, something angelic about the way they fall with harmony.
This sound is conjured and created by Vil’s dry deep vocals and sharp witted, often playful lyrics; guitarist and main songwriter Sami Hassinen; drummer Pätkä Rantala (ex-HIM’s million-selling debut apparently;) keyboardist Janne Immonen; the guitar of Uula Korhonen and the bass/backing vocals of Mäihä, with the voices of their three “Furies”: Hanna Wendelin, Nelli Saarikoski, and Tarja Leskinen. Rarely has such a complex engine and exemplary arrangement created something so easy to grasp; this is so radio friendly and yet so much more that it truly deserves the word ‘subversive’. Imagine The Devil’s Blood having penned a four minute chart breaker rooted to this world, with integrity intact, and you’re drinking in the same bar as Sleep Of Monsters.
There is an obsessive but magnetic charisma here that, for all the tugging of hooks, never lets the songs float away amongst the candy floss. ‘Murder She Wrote’ is a Nick Cave murder ballad toying with deeply, darkly enticing emotion and a weird Victoriana sensibility. Beautiful words, gorgeous lead and backing vocals and orchestration. Four minutes. Four. A truly heart wrenching waltz gone in a few breaths but forever in your mind. ‘Christsonday’ with its effortless guitar sweep that, isolated, could sit atop the charts but wrapped in Coleridge lyrics and a morose, reflective mood is moved into much deeper waters. North African influences whisper inside ‘Through A Mirror Darkly’ but never wash away that Babylon Whores sound in the rise and fall of the dry, laconic voice and the gently swaying guitar riff and jangling melody. ‘Cobwebs Of Your Mind’ is a sunset travelogue, an indie rock sensibility yet with a slow lazy steel heart and a trippy keyboard pattering. This is the sound of explorers still capable of wonder despite their cynical eyes, almost like an ordered scrapbook of their travels or a conversation with a long lost friend as the bar slowly creeps into the small hours. It brings so many visions and forgotten emotions that you can be overwhelmed at first until you remember the flow of their dance, the rhythm, and then you find yourself swept along by the dark undertow. This is a familiar friend changed in so many different ways and all of them intriguing. It’s one of those albums that you think of as ‘yours’ and you want to keep for yourself, safe and selfish.
The time to leave the bar comes and you and your new-old friend step into the early morning, strolling down ‘Abomination Street’. ‘I Am The Night, Colour Me Black’ are their last words as they walk into a cool mist, and its smart but commercial refrain jingles in your ears. Suddenly the future doesn’t seem so certain but it does seem so much brighter, so exciting. Some of the alleyways you passed in this company are dark, some gloomy and morose, but in every one there is such an enticing spark of life that you are drawn back.
I’ll let you explore them yourself, they’ll mean more that way. Just do it because meetings like this don’t come every year. This one is special.
(10/10 Gizmo)
https://www.facebook.com/sleepofmonsters
04/11/2014 at 11:33 am
This is very nice song. When you listen it you want to hear more. When you listening the song and follow the video at the same time it makes the experience even more better!.