If I Don't Do It Now It Might Never Happen

Sleepwall's farewell EP didn't draw too much notice when it was released at the end of last year, not that I'm pointing fingers, since I only just bought the record myself. Maybe people decided to overlook this one because they figured that since the band had broken up they'd most likely faded away with a bunch of crappy slow songs on their last record, like a lot of bands have done, but no, this is full of the same total Treepeople excess ("what a bunch of hardcores would sound like after they've moved onto something else") as the first two Sleepwall singles. The recording on this on is a lot stronger than on their earlier records, also, though that might be because it's coming through on a 12" 45. Sometimes this sounds like "Burning In Water" mixed with the good parts of "Fate's Got a Driver", but no matter how you want to describe it, it pretty much rocks the whole way through (though I sorta wish the drummer had played the last track, "You Got Me Bummin'", a bit more straight-up). Too bad I never got to see these guys, they probably woulda been alright.




Sleepwall -

"Since Third Year"

The REAL Fake Best Of 2008 List

I fucked up and left the Sleepwall 7" off my "Best of '08" list, even though it's been glued solidly to the inside of my mp3 player ever since I first heard about it through Built on a Weak Spot back in August. Most likely I skipped over it by mistake when I thumbed through my boxes of 7"-ers while I was making the list, thinking it was the Hostile Heyday 7-inch. Just another example of how far downhill this blog has fallen in just 10 short months, I guess. (I also left off the Cheap Time and Gentleman Jesse records, only because I figured they'd already be on everyone else's lists, and also The Busy Signals and Chinese Telephones LPs once I googled 'em and found they came out in '07. Man, this writing shit is tougher than I thought.)

I missed out on seeing Sleepwall in Wallingford a few months ago because I went to the I AM Festival that day instead, but there should be another Sleepwall record out on Toxic Pop in '09, so that's good news. The Toxic Pop description of Sleepwall goes something like, "what a bunch of hardcores would sound like after they've moved onto something else", and if you think about some of the 80's bands who actually did follow that path (Deep Wound then Dinosaur, State of Confusion then Treepeople), they're probably right. I'm gonna post "The World Is Too Dark" here, even though it suffers a bit sound-wise from being the last 3-minute track scrunched onto a 7-inch, because it rules in total Treepeople excess.





Sleepwall -

"This World Is Too Dark"

(this file is now listen-only)