Susan Frances
09/04/08, 02:02 PM
Sleep with the Skeleton – To Live in Hearts We Leave behind is Not to die
Record Label: Unsigned
Release Date: September 23, 2007
Sleep with the Skeleton share the emotive metal instincts of another band that has “sleep” in their moniker, Armor for Sleep. SWTS’s latest release, To Live in Hearts We Leave behind is Not to die has hardcore encrusted blow-outs relatable to A Static Lullaby, and a shifting of screamo and melodic pitched vocals reminiscent of Sense Fail. The lead vocals of John Panagotopulos are sharp and pinpoint like a missile alternating a screamo flint with smooth glides. His bass playing creates lightning flinches as the brawny drum kicks of Joey Perron enlarge the rhythmic beats. Guitarists Bent Fayreau and Steve Wodecki amass layers that singe the melodic crests of keyboardist Colin Moge. The metal piping through the tracks is guttural sounding and produces obstacles that the vocals, determined and forceful, surmount and straddle.
“Cretins” shows determination and focus in Panagotopulos’ vocals as the guitars spike the melody producing thorny vistas that cloud up the crevices and channels. The epic rock plumes and darken marshes along “John Hancock” and “Jaws” have quintessential hardcore grips and tooling across the lyrics that plumps it up with megaphoned flusters. The lyrics in “Jaws” reflect over the disconnection that people have with each other, “This is the primetime of our lives / Look how we thrown it away / We’ve synthesized who we are / And we project our electrode hearts / Our fingers typed the words / We wouldn’t ever say / There’s no cure for the damage that we’ve done / You can’t reach out to someone / Over telephone wires / Our signals are breaking up.”
Sleep with the Skeleton expand slightly outside of metal textures by inducing it with silky synth atmospherics like in “Photosynthesis.” Still, the band puts the melodic tones in a vise with an emotive metal torque. The crunchy riffs of “All The Right Numbers” drill a hardcore sonorous as the echoing vibrations of “The Clock Maker” fluctuate between advancing and withholding, and seesaws between mashing and lifting the lyrics as Panagotopulos cries out, “I’m the one who set the clock in motion / I can’t make it stop / I’m the one who built the world around me / I can’t tear it apart.”
What makes the songs on To Live in Hearts We Leave behind is Not to die so great is that Sleep with the Skeleton do not change hardcore but work within its domain. Though SWTS’ music has so much in common with the likes of Armor for Sleep and Sense Fail, the album does not feel like they have plagiarized these bands but shows respect for the music forged by these bands. SWTS has more to evolve if they are going to forge their own path, but they don’t waste the listener’s time going through the journey.
Armor for Sleep, A Static Lullaby, Senses Fail
www.myspace.com/sleepwiththeskeleton (http://www.myspace.com/sleepwiththeskeleton)
Record Label: Unsigned
Release Date: September 23, 2007
Sleep with the Skeleton share the emotive metal instincts of another band that has “sleep” in their moniker, Armor for Sleep. SWTS’s latest release, To Live in Hearts We Leave behind is Not to die has hardcore encrusted blow-outs relatable to A Static Lullaby, and a shifting of screamo and melodic pitched vocals reminiscent of Sense Fail. The lead vocals of John Panagotopulos are sharp and pinpoint like a missile alternating a screamo flint with smooth glides. His bass playing creates lightning flinches as the brawny drum kicks of Joey Perron enlarge the rhythmic beats. Guitarists Bent Fayreau and Steve Wodecki amass layers that singe the melodic crests of keyboardist Colin Moge. The metal piping through the tracks is guttural sounding and produces obstacles that the vocals, determined and forceful, surmount and straddle.
“Cretins” shows determination and focus in Panagotopulos’ vocals as the guitars spike the melody producing thorny vistas that cloud up the crevices and channels. The epic rock plumes and darken marshes along “John Hancock” and “Jaws” have quintessential hardcore grips and tooling across the lyrics that plumps it up with megaphoned flusters. The lyrics in “Jaws” reflect over the disconnection that people have with each other, “This is the primetime of our lives / Look how we thrown it away / We’ve synthesized who we are / And we project our electrode hearts / Our fingers typed the words / We wouldn’t ever say / There’s no cure for the damage that we’ve done / You can’t reach out to someone / Over telephone wires / Our signals are breaking up.”
Sleep with the Skeleton expand slightly outside of metal textures by inducing it with silky synth atmospherics like in “Photosynthesis.” Still, the band puts the melodic tones in a vise with an emotive metal torque. The crunchy riffs of “All The Right Numbers” drill a hardcore sonorous as the echoing vibrations of “The Clock Maker” fluctuate between advancing and withholding, and seesaws between mashing and lifting the lyrics as Panagotopulos cries out, “I’m the one who set the clock in motion / I can’t make it stop / I’m the one who built the world around me / I can’t tear it apart.”
What makes the songs on To Live in Hearts We Leave behind is Not to die so great is that Sleep with the Skeleton do not change hardcore but work within its domain. Though SWTS’ music has so much in common with the likes of Armor for Sleep and Sense Fail, the album does not feel like they have plagiarized these bands but shows respect for the music forged by these bands. SWTS has more to evolve if they are going to forge their own path, but they don’t waste the listener’s time going through the journey.
Armor for Sleep, A Static Lullaby, Senses Fail
www.myspace.com/sleepwiththeskeleton (http://www.myspace.com/sleepwiththeskeleton)