Slumberland – Sleep That Burns – Review

Slumberland

Sleep That Burns
by Nik Rainey  

Slumberland‘s Sleep That Burns reminds me of what happened when the circus downsized and the strongman had to pull the tightrope walker’s job. This Northampton quartet (Aaron Muller – vox/guitar, Joe Bartone – electronic guitar/keys, Josh Thayer – bass, and Peter Muller – drums) carries the formidable weight of precision and propulsion on each side of the bar while traversing a razor-narrow path: A pitiless pit of prog-waste lies to the left of them, the jagged shoals of broken hard rocks (ground to points by grunge erosion) to the right, and God help them should the slightest idiot wind hit them up there. Gasp ye not, gawkers — these boys keep their feet fleet enough to bring them to safety. “Thorne and Vine” combines a venerable old chord progression (kinda like Flipper’s “Ha Ha Ha” bass trudge as if weighted with mercury), well-integrated samples (esp. the “swallowing paste” line from Barfly), and an asymmetric break into a paranoid parable. They bobble a bit on “Heroine” (mostly due to that worn-out double-entendre of a title), but keep the pace with flanged and trem’d gtrs sweeping the song into a panoramic, swirling white-sand wasteland. The closer, “Rosaries and Chains,” utilizes tribalesque drubba-drub-drums, (I swear) Cure-like electracoustic flourishes, and vocals that, as on the previous two trax, emote without whooshing onto the helium Hobbitrail that causes lesser hard-art warblers to fly high but crash fast and hard. And then it’s over, the crowd applauds and wipes their brow in mass relief, and Slumberland lives to walk the line another day. Let’s pray they keep their balance.
(11 School St., Northampton, MA 01060)