While She Sleeps are a band incredibly close to my heart. When I discovered them with the release of The North Stands For Nothing in 2010, they quickly rose to becoming one of my favourite bands of all time. Flash forward to April 2021, the pandemic was finally coming to an end and everyone had an incredible amount of pent-up anger and frustration, especially those who work within the music industry due to the massive amounts of damage that had been done. While She Sleeps used that anger, that sadness, to create Sleeps Society, both an online subscription service for fans to directly fund the band as well as it being their 5th studio release. Within my first couple of listens, it became my favourite release from the band thanks to the incredible melodies, raw lyrics and brutal riffs throughout the albums run time. Even more so, the pandemic left my mental health in the gutter and something about hearing the line “It’s okay to not be okay” within the opening minutes of the release managed to pull me back out.
As we head towards the middle of 2022, While She Sleeps are back with Sleeps Society Special Edition, an extended release of the 2021 album featuring new and reimagined songs. So let’s dive back into the extended version of my favourite release of 2021.
I’m going to skip over the original tracks of the release to keep the review short, so the first track to discuss is Systematic, a re-recorded take on the 2021 track featuring Rou Reynolds of Enter Shikari, with his verse being electronically focused and feeling like it’s ripped straight out of a Shikari track with an incredible flow and politically charged lyrics alongside a remastered breakdown. Up next is the re-releases single Eye To Eye, an utterly brilliant song that shows just how well Sleeps have fine-tuned their sound and song writing ability.
The next new track is The Enemy is The Inner Me, with filthy riffs, raw lyrics that hit very close to home and a breath-taking vocal performance and perfectly complements the albums flow (plus having my favourite breakdown of the year so far). Next up with have the addition of an extended version of the 2019 single Fakers Plague that effortlessly flows into another new track The Long Way Home that is just a beautiful track with melancholic piano, gorgeous vocals and throwbacks to earlier tracks in the album throughout its runtime as well as bringing in more electronic elements to that fit perfectly tonally with everything that came before it. A great experimental piece that manages to show the true talent of the band. Finally, we have an acoustic version of You Are All You Need, my favourite song off the original album. The original works as an anthem of self-love, while the acoustic version is slower, more melancholic and feels like someone realising that self-improvement can only come from one’s self and the acceptance of that idea, with that moment of acceptance bringing in a lift in tempo and emotion before bringing in a beautiful orchestra to finish the song. It would be a lie to say I didn’t shed a tear during the track.
Sleeps Society was already a 10/10 release, and did it need a re-issue? Probably not. But we got one anyway. The new and reworked tracks all added something genuinely new to the release to help it feel even stronger than it did before. I would genuinely say the Special Edition of Sleeps Society is a perfect album.
Sleeps Society Arrives Friday June 3rd courtesy of Search & Destroy / Spinefarm Records
Review: Dan Stapleton
Tracklist:
CONNECT WITH WHILE SHE SLEEPS:
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WHILE SHE SLEEPS ARE:
Lawrence Taylor – Vocals | Sean Long – Guitar | Mat Welsh – Guitar / Vocals
Aaran Mckenzie – Bass | Adam Savage – Drums