Album Review: Sleeping With Sirens - 'Feel'

Post-hardcore has always been an in-between way of looking at things. It’s like dipping your toes in both ends of the water. Not too heavy, not too light.

For Orlando’s Sleeping With Sirens it has been a quite fluent set-up since formation in 2009. With new album ‘Feel’ it’s now three full-lengths down. The popularity is there, but for the discernible listener you can’t always make judgments purely based on hype.

Predecessor ‘Let’s Cheers to This’ was well-received and generated the ideal buzz for Feel’s release. On first appearances, this album does feel a little preachy with gentle, passive vocals and non-threatening rhythms. However, this is an initial and perhaps simple way of looking at things, which misses key areas that make up the band’s sound.

Sleeping With Sirens work to create atmosphere. The group build engagement through rising tempos, with appealing choruses the icing on the cake. It’s not perfect, it’s not magnificent, but it’s consistent and genuine.

While it might sound too judgemental and unfair, this is music that will sit most comfortably in a teenager’s CD rack (those still exist, right?!) However, ‘Feel’ does have a strange charm to it. You get to a point where you are ready to press stop and then after awhile you realised you’ve made it through from beginning to end.

The title track, which opens this release is timid and perhaps would’ve been better suited towards the tail end. ‘Here We Go’ really sets the album up. The blueprint is pretty straightforward. Up-tempo but crisp rhythms and the cascading vocals of Kellin Quinn. ‘Free Now’ is a little it and miss. ‘Low’ does inject some much needed intensity.

It’s a contemporary sounding record. Electronics, emotive lyrics. It’s clean-cut not gritty. The infectious hooks and stylistic elements will ensure this album is catchy – although it can get bland after awhile. There’s no danger, no unpredictability. It’s just a safe record – not in the sense the band have played it that way, but more in the way the music is too calm.

Sleeping With Sirens walk the fine between many competing styles. This is perhaps a change in sound for the band. It has moments, but that’s about it.

1. Feel

2. Here We Go

3. Free Now

4. Alone (FEAT. MGK)

5. I’ll Take You There (FEAT. Shayley Bourget)

6. The Best There Ever Was

7. Low

8. Congratulations (FEAT. Matty Mullins)

9. Deja Vu

10. These Things I’ve Done

11. Sorry

12. Satellites