ALBUM REVIEW: Pride & Disaster – Sleep On It
From feel good anthem After Tonight through to the nostalgic wonderings of Logan Square, you can easily be fooled into thinking the second album from Chicago’s SLEEP ON IT proves they are one of the happiest “sad” bands around. Following their 2017 debut effort Overexposed, Pride & Disaster comes as a reminder that there are two sides to every coin – light and dark, sad and happy – and is a refreshing addition to a genre that has allegedly seen better days.
Where a luscious production brightens SLEEP ON IT’s pop punk structures, it’s Zech Pluister’s achingly mesmerising vocals that stand centre stage on Pride & Disaster. They centre their lyrical content on the idea of growth, the ups and downs of growing up and the emotional trials that make us human: SLEEP ON IT effortlessly sweep away any notion of copy cat nostalgia and offer a catalogue of ten songs that will have you animatedly singing along one moment before sobbing into your pillow the next.
Opener Racing Toward A Red Light is just the one example of the band’s penchant for optimism. “There’s a long road in front of me,” Pluister sings in the chorus, a feeling of hope matched by an equally hopeful guitar tone. Such hope is cleverly sandwiched between darker moments, as found on the albums heaviest hitter Under The Moment. Its lyrics: “Whats the point / when I always end up losing days / Every night I always feel the same /give me time to find the lie / I’ll be fine if you just give me time /It’s all in my head, I’ll figure it out / the room is on fire and I’m filled with doubt / I’m begging I’m pleading could you help me out?” are delivered as three minutes of catharsis that feels just at home as a sing-along banger in a festival field as it is a thought provoking heavy hitter that you’ll cry along to alone in your room. It’s a trope we’re all familiar with, but instead of lingering on the melancholy SLEEP ON IT focus on these themes from an angle of well-being rather than sorrow.
On Babe Ruth, SLEEP ON IT look back on their childhood memories wrapped in a familiar chord progression that feels inherently inviting, driving home the bands knack for making you feel all the things. Logan Square is a love letter to the Chicago neighbourhood they call home (which of course no pop punk album would be complete without), and After Tonight pivots around the playful use of tempo and layered vocals which threaten to make it the genre’s anthem of the year. Period.
Pride & Disaster is riddled with structures and textures of back-to-basics pop punk that never sound stoic, each brimming with nostalgic sentiments that don’t dare tiptoe into the realm of cliché. The comparisons to their contemporaries are far too easy to come by; at times leaning on the fun-driven rhythms found in ALL TIME LOW’s Dear Maria and the lo-fi/DIY guitar distortion of FALL OUT BOY’s golden era (even the rolling drawl of LIT’s A. Jay Popoff come to mind), but the band’s knack for approaching the genre with a maturity and intelligence that makes for an addictive listen without feeling tired.
In The Cycle Of Always Leaving, TJ Horansky‘s delicate guitar melodies ebb above the mix to lay the groundwork for yet another anthemic chorus, while balladic closer Lost & Found sees SLEEP ON IT lapse into their darker themes yet still languishing in an air of optimism. SLEEP ON IT are breaking down pop punk’s doors with a renewed energy and if there’s one record that you’ll return to time and again for both the highs and lows, then Pride & Disaster is certainly it.
Rating: 9/10
Pride & Disaster is out now via Rude Records.
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